Tag Archives: coffee

Solar-powered coffee truck concept runs on green fuel to bring black fuel anywhere

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They say money makes the world go round, but coffee is probably just as critical for some people. Connoisseurs will undoubtedly tell anyone willing to listen to brew their own cup, but not everyone has the luxury of doing that daily. If you don’t know of a local shop you can call your home away from home, you’d probably be at the mercy of the big, expensive chains that put more sugar than you’re going to be comfortable with. Establishing a fixed store in a nook or building isn’t going to be cheap for some businesses, and it also means not being able to reach customers where they are. Coffee trucks can solve the problem of portability, but this concept design takes that idea even further by having the whole operation run on solar power, potentially bringing that coffee experience anywhere, even away from the grid.

Designer: Kyrolos Maged

Although you can see them almost everywhere, big chain stores like Starbucks won’t always please everyone. Some simply don’t like their selection or the way they do business. Others simply prefer to patronize smaller businesses to help them grow and thrive. Either way, the majority of these stores force you to go to their location, which is not a problem unless there isn’t one nearby. It would definitely be great if the coffee could come to where the people are rather than the other way around, which is what coffee trucks are trying to do.

Although they are a viable business model, such mobile coffee dispensing stores have a few logistic issues to iron out, specifically one of power. Sure, you can run the machines on the same battery that drives the truck, but it also risks you running out of fuel when you need it the most. And with some vehicles turning to electric power, such a power source might no longer be feasible. This unnamed concept thus turns toward an ever-present source, at least during the time when people are most likely to chug their black or brown fuel.

The solar-powered coffee truck is exactly as it sounds, an operation that runs on solar energy rather than fuel or car batteries. There’s a single large solar panel on top of the truck, but it’s easy enough to extend the design to have multiple panels on the “wings” that fold out from the sides of the truck. This way, the energy needs of the coffee machines and the truck itself are kept separate and you don’t have to worry about one eating into the reserves of the other.

The design of the truck itself is pretty standard, with sliding tables to let customers put down their cups for a while or enjoy some sandwiches that the mobile cafe might offer. What’s interesting, however, is the idea that the coffee truck would offer all sorts of coffee, including those from capsule machines. It’s a good way to diversify and hit many types of customers while also ensuring the speed of service, though pure-blood coffee lovers might turn their noses up at such a thought.

The post Solar-powered coffee truck concept runs on green fuel to bring black fuel anywhere first appeared on Yanko Design.

I didn’t know how desperately I needed a Knock Box for my Espresso Machine

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Diving into the world of coffee is a slippery slope because it’s a never-ending void of products and processes that can improve your brew. The last time I checked, people were recommending using a frozen metal ball in the espresso pouring process to help preserve more delicate flavor profiles. The point is, coffee aficionados will stop at nothing to make sure they’re brewing the best coffee possible… and for the most part, the products they use are absolutely unnecessary (I’m looking at you, coffee needle distributors), but the second I lay my eyes on the Olympus Knock Box, I knew there was something different about it. Designed as a practical addition to your coffee brewing setup, the Olympus Knock Box is a two-part accessory that serves as a tamping station as well as a bin for your coffee after it’s been brewed. Made from molded cork, powder-coated steel, and silicone, the Olympus helps you brew your coffee efficiently (and cleanly too). The tamping station lets you quickly tamp your portafilter, while the knock box itself lets you whack out that puck of coffee after it’s been brewed and extracted. Unlike extracting your espresso over a frozen metal orb, the Olympus Knock Box is just one of those devices that makes the brewing process more convenient, cleaner, and just more effective, whether you’re a home-brewer or a barista at an artisanal cafe.

Designer: Bron Davis

Click Here to Buy Now: $99 $125 (20% off). Hurry, only 7/70 left!

Knock Boxes have been around for a while, but haven’t really gained much prominence and I think it’s time we change that. Having a knock box with your coffee machine is just about as sensible as wearing an apron while cooking. Just like you wouldn’t want to get your clothes dirty while making food, you wouldn’t want to have your counter or floor a mess while you’re tamping your coffee or knocking the espresso puck out into a bin after extraction. The Olympus provides a nifty station for you to do both activities, keeping your kitchen clean while looking like an elegant little container worthy of adorning your countertop.

Olympus’ knock box design does away with the traditional knock bar, instead utilizing a central rubber silicone pad. This way you can empty out your portafilter with just one clean mess-free hit – perfect for the home coffee bar (that might be doubling as a counter).

The Olympus has a gorgeously simple-looking design that relies on a winning combination of minimalism and a brown/black color palette. The Olympus’ base is made from a molded cork composite that uses micro-granules of cork bound with a natural binding agent that’s nature-friendly, toxin-free, and has zero plastics. It has the appeal of engineered wood, which goes rather well with the black components that sit on top. Nested into this cork base is the powder-coated steel bin that holds as many as 6 espresso pucks in its receptacle.

Once filled, you can merely empty the bin into your trash or add it to your compost pile or kitchen garden. Finally, upon the steel tray sits the Olympus’ tamping station, made out of stiff-yet-flexible silicone. The station has a unique design that accepts portafilters of various sizes, ranging from 51mm to as big as 58mm. The filter snugly fits in, getting secured by a set of silicone fins that prevent it from slipping as you firmly tamp your coffee grounds. Once you’re done, the rim of the tamping station is the perfect point to knock your filter, causing the puck of coffee to fall out in the bin. The silicone is stiff enough to provide a reliable knock without any loud clacking sound.

Designed for homes and tiny hideout cafes, the Olympus has a compact form factor that occupies a mere 6.75″x5.6″ rectangle on your countertop (with a 4″ vertical). Although our hearts are overwhelmingly set on the brown and black variant, there’s another one with a brown base and a white tray and tamping station (although you’ll probably notice dirt faster on it). For coffee enthusiasts looking to own a perfect knock box, the Olympus starts at a 20% discounted price of $99 and ships globally starting Jan-Feb 2024.

Click Here to Buy Now: $99 $125 (20% off). Hurry, only 7/70 left!

The post I didn’t know how desperately I needed a Knock Box for my Espresso Machine first appeared on Yanko Design.

A Coffee Grinder So Sleek and User-Friendly, You’d Think Apple or Dyson Designed It

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I’m not one to throw the words Apple and Dyson too flippantly, but that’s pretty much the feeling you get looking at the BURRUS coffee grinder. While you’d expect a regular coffee grinder to simply crush your coffee beans to a fine powder, the BURRUS far outpaces anything you’d expect from a standard grinder. It comes with both automatic and hand-cranked mechanisms, and has a circular display on top that lets you cycle through various settings depending on the kind of grind you want, a magnetically docking wooden collector-mug at the bottom that gathers all your grounds to be transported to your coffee maker, an integrated precision scale that lets you measure out every gram of coffee you grind, and a wireless charging pad that powers the automatic grinder’s motor while also moonlighting as a smartphone charger every now and then. Even the grinder itself is built to the highest standards, with 48mm conical burrs that grind your beans with unmatched consistency, along with a magnetic pre-filter that catches any stray objects like staples that may accidentally end up in your grinder, damaging it. The entire product comes ensconced in an anodized aluminum and mahogany wood exterior, boasting a minimal design that’s still captivating to the eye… like if Sir James Dyson met ace barista James Hoffmann.

Designer: Tolga Akkoç

Click Here to Buy Now: $349 $1000 ($650 off). Hurry, deal ends in 48 hours! Raised over $40,000.

Say goodbye to costly high-end electric grinders. Harness the Power or Go Manual
The Choice is Yours!

Standing tall with its metal + wood body, the BURRUS occupies less physical as well as visual space on your kitchen countertop. Its design marries great style with cutting-edge tech, complementing your state-of-the-art coffee machine and premium single-origin coffee beans. The grinder comes in two variants, a hand-cranked manual version that lets you personally grind each batch of coffee, or an automatic version that relies on an electrical motor that grinds exactly the right amount of coffee down to the milligram with staggering consistency.

With 200 distinct grind settings, you’re not just making coffee – you’re crafting an experience.

Whether it’s the rich oils of a dark roast or the subtle notes of a light roast, our 48mm burr captures the essence, delivering a grind that’s both precise and consistent.

The hand-cranked version is still miles ahead of any manual burr grinder you could find on Amazon. It has a mahogany-knobbed handle that snaps into the grinder magnetically, while the grinder itself is slim enough to be gripped with your other hand. A ring on the base lets you set the coarseness of your grind (coarse for a French press or pour-over, fine for a Moka pot or espresso machine), with a staggering 200 grind settings to choose from. 48mm stainless steel conical burr grinders help crush your beans with incredible consistency. The conical shape of the grinders guides your bean downwards while ensuring the grinding gears don’t shift around too much. This means every coffee ground particle that comes out of the BURRUS is roughly the same size, resulting in a uniform brew. The grounds get collected in a wooden container cup made from mahogany. The cup sits inside the BURRUS, docking magnetically in place. Hold it by the handle and pull it out when you’re done and you can pour the grounds directly into the coffee machine of your choosing.

If you fancy yourself something a little more high-tech, just replace the handle with BURRUS’ electric motor module that turns your manual grinder into an automatic one. The module comes with a 1.3-inch display on the top with a rotating bezel that lets you cycle through the grinder’s multitude of options. You can choose your grind speed, and even program exactly how many grams of coffee you want ground. Hit the button and the BURRUS gets to work, effectively (and silently) crushing your roasted beans to perfection. Grounds are dispensed into the mahogany container below, and a precision scale under it tells the BURRUS exactly when to stop. This means you grind exactly how much coffee you need without any wastage, while also saving money on an additional weighing scale that you’d have to buy separately.

Set your desired grind amount, adjust the speed, and tailor your brew with a level of precision unprecedented in coffee grinders.

The BURRUS comes in black and white color variants, with bronze metal accents and mahogany wood detailing in the handle, base, and the cup. You can alternate between hand-cranked and automatic modes simply by switching the modules on the top, going from a personal experience to an electric motor-powered one depending on what you’re in the mood for. A ring on the waist of the grinder lets you select the burr size, and when in automatic mode, you can even select the grind amount down to a micro-level as well as determine the grind speed you want. The patented inner hardware works silently, so your coffee-grinding ritual doesn’t end up waking everyone else. The automatic grinder also knows exactly when to stop grinding, and in the event that a bean gets stuck in the burrs, an anti-stuck feature allows the BURRUS to course-correct and dislodge the stuck bean. Each grinder is also accompanied by a mahogany wood charging base that you can rest your grinder on… with MagSafe no less, allowing you to also charge your smartphone!

The BURRUS starts at a specially discounted $349 (for just the first 48 hours of the sale) before settling to its super early bird price of $499. It ships globally, and you can also choose to add a wooden cleaning brush (to maintain your grinder) or a premium hard-shell carrying case to your pledge.

Click Here to Buy Now: $349 $1000 ($650 off). Hurry, deal ends in 48 hours! Raised over $40,000.

The post A Coffee Grinder So Sleek and User-Friendly, You’d Think Apple or Dyson Designed It first appeared on Yanko Design.

This Gorgeous Coffee Advent Calendar gives you 24 Unique Blends to count down days till Christmas

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A calendar that looks AND tastes great!

For the uninitiated, Advent Calendars aren’t your standard calendars. Rather than chronicling the 365 days into 12 months, Advent Calendars have just one simple purpose – to count down the days till Christmas. The calendar became somewhat of a tradition in the 1850s, with 24 different flaps that had Bible verses that you’d read every day up until Christmas Day on the 25th of December. In modern times, the calendar has become more of a gifting ritual, with brands creating tiny calendars with products/gifts for each day. This year, the folks at Onyx Coffee Lab decided to make a calendar that quite literally gets you ‘charged up’ for Christmas. The 2023 Coffee Advent Calendar comes in a gorgeous box that opens up to reveal an entire spread of coffee. The box itself is decorated beautifully with gold foil, and creates a wonderful fanned presentation of coffee sachets when opened. I imagine once you’re done drinking all that coffee, it would make for an incredible book or magazine holder!

Designer: Onyx Coffee Lab

Click Here to Buy Now

Featuring 24 days of coffee, the calendar explores various origins, blends, and processing methods, allowing you to experience a veritable tapestry of coffee flavors leading up to Christmas. It’s a perfect way to explore the world through a single cup before deciding on what coffee you want to try more of in the next year!

While Onyx delights practically every year with its gorgeous advent calendars, this year’s packaging exudes elegance and is designed to leave a lasting impression. The box’s exterior is adorned with stunning seasonal illustrations, enhanced with gold foil treatments. Upon opening the box, you’ll discover an accordion-style collection box revealing 24 individually wrapped bags of coffee. Each bag is marked from Day 1 to Day 24, guiding you on a daily journey of coffee discovery. A beautifully designed information card is also included, providing details about each coffee, adding to the overall unique coffee experience.

Click Here to Buy Now

The post This Gorgeous Coffee Advent Calendar gives you 24 Unique Blends to count down days till Christmas first appeared on Yanko Design.