Decent Demo in Budapest

Budapest will be the world’s coffee capital for a few days this June.  Just added to the list of events is a demonstration of the Decent Espresso machine at 6pm on June 14 at Espresso Embassy.  Even if you don’t make it to the Decent Demo, you must visit Espresso Embassy while you’re in Budapest.  Espresso Embassy is set in a gorgeous arched-brick tunnel in the Old City and is run by the gracious Tibor Varady, a true student of quality coffee.  

This isn’t just any demo — this is a demo of the world’s most sophisticated espresso machine, with a brand-new feature I’ve been salivating over for many months: Flow Profiling.

This is a big deal: Decent has largely divorced flow from grind.  Think about how minor changes in grind can lead to frustratingly dramatic changes in espresso flavor and flow rate.  The Decent can now target and reproduce shot flow rates, even if your grind is slightly off.  Do you want to pull 40g of espresso in 30 seconds?  No problem— we’ll give you that every shot.  Would you like preinfusion to be at 4 ml/s flow and then have flow ramp down to 2 ml/s for the rest of extraction?  Done.  Perhaps you’d like to see how coffee tastes when extracted with a declining flow rate?  Easy as.

John and I are still wrapping our heads around what this may mean for espresso.  In just our first day of pulling flow-controlled shots, we made a few discoveries.  For example, John pulled a shot that he loved, the flow was a  constant 1.5 ml/s, and the pressure increased throughout the extraction.

That boggled our minds for a few minutes.  After all, both puck erosion and increasing pressure should cause flow rate to increase.  On the Decent or a pressure-profile machine, we usually rely on declining pressure to produce a constant flow rate.  I believe what we experienced was an extraction in which the puck never compressed.  This was an interesting development, as it’s possible that avoiding puck compression could decrease the frequency of channeling, or perhaps change the character of espresso.

We think Flow Profiling is going to produce many new possibilities for espresso quality and consistency, and lead to a better understanding of extraction dynamics.  We're excited to see what we learn from it.

Come see it for yourself.

6pm, June 14th

Espresso Embassy, Budapest Arany János u. 15, 1051