The fighter in the coffee machine can precisely control the taste of each cup of coffee.

Photo Source: Huagai Creative

In recent years, coffee machines have become essential equipment in many urban family kitchens. But former Apple designers and former NASA engineers have teamed up to take coffee machines to new heights.

"Blossom One" sounds more like a cool fighter jet. Like Leica and Linhaf in cameras, or Rolls Royce or Bentley in cars, the Blossoms One is top-of-the-line gear for serious coffee aficionados. The compact machine, which is only 18 centimeters wide, costs $5950. At the end of 2012, the first batch of "Flower No.1 Limited Edition" prototypes came out, with only 10 units worldwide and a price of up to $11111.

Jeremy Kuempel, president of Blossom Coffee, spent his college days in Boston with coffee and homework until dawn. Hundreds of cups of coffee developed sensitive taste buds and inspired the MIT Thermodynamic Engineering student to build the perfect coffee machine. After graduating in 2011, the former Apple intern and his friend Matt Walliser, who used to work at NASA, used their love of coffee and knowledge of mechanics to create Blossom One.

Serious coffee aficionados dismiss over-automated capsules like Keurig, and instant coffee is even less appealing. They believe that even with the same coffee bean, each cup of hand-ground coffee has a different bitterness, acidity and fruity flavor. Grinding thickness, water temperature, ratio of coffee to water, stirring times, pressure and time are six important factors affecting hand-ground coffee.

Despite the banner of "handwork", there is no doubt about the technological content of Silicon Valley's "Flower No.1". Before the birth of Flower One, which advertised that "every cup is precisely controlled", there was no machine in the world that could accurately control these six variables at the same time. When using, the user can manually set it on "Flower No.1" according to his own preferences. Or through the built-in camera, scan the QR code on the brand packaging of cooperative coffee beans, and automatically select the corresponding settings according to different varieties of coffee beans. At the same time, baristas can share recipe settings with other coffee machines through the smartphone software that comes with the machine.

Directly aimed at coffee shops and ultra-high-end consumers, Blossom One will not compete directly with coffee maker brands such as Keurig or Bunn anytime soon.

Hand ground coffee is on the rise. As of last year, only 3% of the more than 20,000 Starbucks in the United States deployed hand-ground coffee machines. In 2008, the coffee chain giant bought Clover, a brand of high-end coffee machines. In early 2014, Starbucks announced that it would increase the deployment of hand-ground coffee machines in its stores.

Jeremy Kuempel sees the emphasis on hand-ground coffee in the Green Big Mac as a market opportunity. "Even if Starbucks doesn't use our machines, other coffee shop brands can think about how to compete with Starbucks Goliath." Perhaps Blossoms One could become David's slingshot.

Source: Interface: Qian Ruisun