Bonaverde Roast-Grind-Brew Coffee Machine, White with Green Accents

** Update 14-Feb-2018 **1. Like me, all other owners of this machine should have received two additional RDIF cards from Bonaverde. One of the cards is for ROAST only. The other is for GRIND & BREW only. These cards are specifically designed to address the "de-gassing" concerns of some owners. Now you can roast the beans, take them out and let them rest for 24-48 hours, and then grind and brew them later on. (Facebook Messenger can also be used to send ROAST only and GRIND/BREW only commands without having to use the RFID cards.)2. I recently tried the Ethiopian Limu beans from Bonaverde using the Facebook Messenger roasting profile of the same name. Wow! These beans were roasted, ground, and brewed serially (i.e. no de-gassing) and are my new favorite! Just be sure to adjust the strength by using an appropriate ratio of beans and water. I typically use 700mL water with 35g-40g of beans.**** end of update ****As an early backer of this item on Kickstarter, I waited over 3 years for the machine to be developed and delivered. As you can imagine, many Kickstarter backers became extremely frustrated with the delays and design changes, and voiced their frustrations quite vehemently. I want to acknowledge what they went through, but I must also say that I was not one of them because I've gone through the crowdfunding game several times and I knew the risks. I saw the potential of an integrated machine, which the manufacturer cleverly calls an "RGB" system (Roast, Grind, Brew), and I just relaxed and waited.Imagine my huge surprise this past October when my white/green machine arrived on my doorstep!I had to try it out and taste the difference of freshly roasted coffee, which is something I had never had the pleasure of tasting before. But before I get to that, let's get some preliminaries out of the way...To be sure, there are some "factors" that buyers must keep in mind:1. The machine is about half an inch taller than the standard distance between the kitchen counter and the kitchen cabinet above it. For me, fortunately, there is a section of the kitchen counter without an overhead cabinet, so I have no problem in placing the unit. Because there's an exhaust vent atop the unit, it should not be squeezed into a confined space anyway.2. There is only one button: a "start" button. So how do you control roasting temperature, roasting time, number of roasting cycles, water temperature, strength of brew, etc? There are two ways to do this: (a) scan the single-use RFID chip that comes with each prepackaged bag of raw beans from Bonaverde, or (b) use the Facebook Messenger app on your smartphone to choose different predefined roasting profiles. Bonaverde is expected to provide more flexible options in the future (hopefully they will allow us to define roasting profiles ourselves). Incidentally, the response time from Facebook Messenger is stunningly fast! When you enter "start" in Messenger, the coffee maker magically comes alive within a second or two! When you first experience this, it's just a WOW moment!3. Strength of brew is determined manually, like in most coffee machines. You put in a certain amount of coffee beans and fill the water tank to a certain level. The amount of beans and the amount of water will dictate the strength of the brew. You can also control the grind size from coarse to fine using a rotating wheel located behind the water tank. The wheel, however, is a bit troublesome to rotate -- I hope Bonaverde redesigns this in the future.4. The machine also connects to the T-Mobile cellular network (no charge for this connection) over 3G. This connection is necessary to make use of the device if you don't have RFID tags for your raw coffee beans. It's probably a good idea to check the T-Mobile coverage map for your area from T-Mobile's website prior to purchase.5. Privacy. Because this machine uses IoT technology (Internet of Things), it is connected to the Bonaverde cloud. Some people have expressed privacy concerns over the fact that Bonaverde can monitor and track your coffee habits. My own opinion about this is very simple: Who the heck cares? All of our gmail messages, browser activities, and photographs are data mined and tracked for advertising and other machine learning purposes these days. Tracking my coffee habits is the least of my privacy concerns.6. Because raw beans are being roasted, there is going to be an odor similar to that of popcorn that will be emitted from this process. The machine's replaceable air filter tries to minimize it, but the odor can fill up the kitchen. Three suggestions for dealing with this: (a) place or operate the machine near your kitchen vent and turn the vent on, (b) open windows on different walls to allow air circulation, or (c) use an air purifier.7. You can buy your own raw coffee beans from any source you like. I bought three bags from Amazon for experimentation. Because there is no RFID chip in these third-party bags, you must use the Facebook Messenger app to select one of the predefined roasting profiles (or use the "Forever RFID Badge" that ships with all new machines). Feel free to experiment with different profiles. (Eventually, I hope we will be able to create our own profiles.)8. In fact, you *must* experiment with different settings. This is the best way to learn to make the most tailored coffee to suit your very personal tastes. Try different roasting profiles, try different grinder settings, try different amounts of beans, try different amounts of water.**The worst thing you can do is make ONE batch of coffee with ONE combination of settings and judge the whole machine from a sample size of ONE.** So go ahead and experiment...With all that out of the way, let's finally talk about the coffee that I made. Keep in mind that you will probably make it differently...and in fact you should make it to suit your own preferences.1. The machine came with 20 coffee pouches, each with an RFID tag (machines sold now through Amazon will come with 20 pouches and a single "Forever RFID" tag that can be used an indefinite number of times). The very first carafe I brewed was with one of these pouches, with grind set to medium, and water filled to the max 10 cup level. The resulting coffee was sublimely smooth, with not even a hint of bitterness. It was like running a hot knife through butter -- smooth and balanced. But the coffee also had a slightly different "tone" or "color temperature". Just as sounds have different tones and colors have different temperatures (white light 5000K or warm light 3000K), freshly roasted coffee has a different "taste-tone" compared to pre-roasted and pre-ground coffee.2. Someone told me that the crust of the raw coffee bean contains sugar. When we buy pre-roasted and pre-ground coffee, the crust has been completely removed or filtered out. But when we roast our own raw beans, some of crust material probably makes its way into the grinder. Although the Berlin does a very good job of removing crusts during roasting, it cannot remove 100% of them. So my own theory is that some of the sugars inherent to the crusts make their way into the coffee, resulting in actual hints of sweetness -- not real sweetness, but hints of sweetness. This is probably what accounts for the different "taste-tone"...3. The raw beans I purchased from Amazon didn't taste quite as good as the ones that came packaged with the machine. However, this does not mean they tasted bad. And it does not mean that I used the best settings. In fact, I just need to experiment a bit more with third-party beans. Beans purchased from Bonaverde (available from Amazon as well) will have roasting profiles that are selected from the Messenger app. These beans and profiles work very well together.4. Overall, I am very pleased with this machine. The software will get better over time (I don't get hung up over something that is still evolving), but the machine as it is *today* is producing some of the most exciting, interesting and delicious cups of coffee I have ever tasted. Mind you, I drink my coffee black -- nothing but the coffee -- so my appraisal of the machine is based just on the coffee and nothing else (no fancy creamers or sweeteners or syrups or anything else).

Today is a sad day. It is the day I'm giving up on Bonaverde and the Berlin. As I stated in my original posting, Bonaverde is excellent in replacing machines that fail. Problem is you'll spend most of your time waiting for a new machine. To date, every single Berlin I've had has failed in the grinder. You know, the part hundreds of other coffee machines have been coming with for years. I am on my third machine and it lasted exactly one cycle. On day two, the grinder has failed again; this time so spectacularly that it actually seems to have jack hammered (the sound it was making) the coffee into it's own recesses someplace; there were almost no roasted beans left in the roaster.Not a gain of coffee, however, made it to the filter. The Berlin is a fun idea, but the execution is abysmal. Head my advice, DO NOT buy this product.-The following is my original review for reference -Okay, after reading Southern Eagles nonsensical and completely useless review of a product he neither owns or has tried, I feel I might as well chime in here as someone who does own the Berlin, roasted by own beans for years, and uses them in every preparation from Espresso to Cold Brew. 1. The Berlin is convenient; you can setup to brew any one of a number of profiles had have extremely fresh coffee ready when you want. 2. You can play with the machine to roast say the night before and grind-brew in the morning. This allows the roasted coffee to degas overnight. And no, you don’t need days to degas 60 or less grams of beans. Along with the variety of profiles this allows for, 3. A great variety in achieving what you like.This was a Kickstarter campaign and Bonaverde has had its share of hurdles to overcome. One thing is clear, they are serious about the product and have continued to make the experience better even after delivery.Some of you may have concerns about the company and their warranty of the Berlin. Well my first one failed after 3 months (so have many other coffee machines I’ve purchased over the years). I contacted Bonaverde support, they sent me a new machine, I stuck the old one in the box and sent it back and they paid postage both ways. To my way of looking at things it doesn’t really get any better than that.Southern Eagle would have you believe that your house is going to smell aweful from roasting. Well yes, if you roast in a traditional roaster or popcorn machine in your kitchen it most definitely will; however, the Berlin is very well filtered. You can smell the roasting, but it is not unpleasant. It’s also well insulated and much quieter when grinding than any grinder I’ve ever owned.The Berlin has no discernible buttons. You plug it in and that’s it. There is a contact spot on the front that you touch to wake the machine before you scan a roast-grind-brew or roast only or grind-brew card in front of it. And that’s it. The rest is automatic. Better still is the Facebook Messenger app that allows you to schedule start times, fire the thing off from anywhere (as a treat for my wife I set the Berlin up before going on overnight travel and started it making coffee for her from my cell phone in the morning), select roasting profiles, etc.Is the Berlin perfect, hardly. Name one machine that is. But it is good and it does work. One final note on roasting your own beans since Southern Eagle would have you running off for the popcorn popper at Amazon, roasting coffee is an art and a science. The best roasters spend years perfecting the science and crafting the art of the perfect cup. You aren’t going to get there in your kitchen. Most of you are going to be like I was several years ago and think buying the coffee in the plastic bags at you local supermarket or mass-market coffee shop is the epitome of coffee excellence. Your morning coffee ritual might simply consist of stuffing a pod or capsule into a machine and pressing a button. For you, the Berlin is going to open your eyes to a whole new morning experience. All of that coffee is old and dead. Have you ever bought a bag of pre-popped popcorn. That kind of dead. Like corn, coffee is a living plant. How many plants do you like eating after sitting around for 6 months on the shelf. The Berlin does a great job of taking all of that complexity and turning out consistently decent coffee.If you love coffee, try it fresh. And please, use good water. Your house water unless filtered through a Reverse Osmosis system is full of chemicals. When you make coffee, you heat those chemicals to a couple hundred degrees and then drink them. Don’t blame the coffee machine if your coffee still tastes bad.

My machine only worked for 2 weeks. I waited almost 3 years I can't exactly remember but at least 2 years. The company offered various fix hints and mentioned a warranty repair service, but the only info I have for that service is located in Germany.Also when the machine "worked" it did not roast the beans dark enough for my tastes so I ended up roasting the beans twice. Also the hot plate that keeps the coffee hot went off too soon. A clever idea of a machine that doesn't actually work. Mine will soon be put out at the curb for garbage pick up. $300 down the drain