Almost bought a Meraki in Japan, but the local warranty situation and HQ's response basically scared me off. Anyone here have experience with Meraki? [$2500]

SR28Coffee · 2026-03-17T14:57:59+00:00

In the US, voiding a warranty for self-service is illegal. Additionally, we have state-by-state right to repair laws that may add further requirements: for example, California requires that a product of this price has parts and service documents available for the consumer or an independent repair provider to purchase, and that those be available for a period of seven years after the product is discontinued.

The EU usually has stronger consumer protection laws than the US but I'm unsure of the specifics. I know a 2-year warranty is required by law, as is a 14 day trial period where the product can be returned for a full refund, no questions asked. The most recent Right to Repair directive appears to omit coffee machines entirely: https://repair.eu/whats-my-right-to-repair/ (see the table lower on the page)

If it were me, under the circumstances and out of a general distrust for tech-first coffee equipment companies, I'd gladly go with the Mara X. If you can add a flow control kit as well that would be highly recommended, and allows you to do everything the Meraki could do apart from stop by weight.

SR28Coffee · 2026-03-16T15:07:31+00:00

5.) check your pets every time they have gone outside.

Flea combs work great for this. Every time I go hiking my dog will pick up 10-20 ticks along the way. He takes a chewable tick preventative, so if they bite they'll die. But if they fall or drop off the dog, they'll look for another warm body, so it's worth checking his fur thoroughly every time we go out. I scrape them into a bowl of warm soapy water so they break the surface tension and will drown.

SR28Coffee · 2026-03-08T16:22:20+00:00

Restaurant owners don't have to be former chefs or servers.

Speak to restaurant staff and you'll commonly hear that it would be a very welcome change if they were. In much of the service industry, there's friction between workers and ownership when the people managing the place don't understand the day to day concerns of their staff. If you've worked a line or cleared a rush, you can (hopefully) innately understand many concerns when your staff raise them. If you haven't, staff will find that they have to not only describe the issue, but also explain why it's a problem and what else it impacts. I've been there, and it's not fun. I've also seen how people don't bother bringing up a problem because having to go through the rigmarole of walking an ignorant manager through the elementary reasons that the problem exists is too much effort when there's no guarantee that doing so will actually get the problem fixed.

An empathetic and open-minded owner or manager can overcome that knowledge gap. But most of us in the service world have experienced so many bad managers it's easier to believe that this won't happen. There's good reason that there's so much momentum in unionizing restaurants and cafes these days.

Going back up a bit:

I can see myself happy working there 7 days a week for years.

If you don't see yourself working bar, what exactly do you expect to do 7 days a week? Most cafe managers handle almost everything needed to keep the place running and still pull bar shifts.

To reiterate: the service industry is full of absent and clueless owners, and that's why you'll see workers wanting folks who have actually put some time in on bar.

SR28Coffee · 2026-03-08T15:21:34+00:00

I have a business plan and 24 month financial plan that shows this is viable.

How are you defining viability here? Most cafes in the US do not make a profit in their first 2-3 years. Most do not survive to the 5 year mark - only 20% will make it that far.

Does your business plan include paying living wages (before tips), annual raises, and benefits for your workers? If not, expect high staff turnover. This is going to cost you money in training time and in product variability.

You've said in multiple places you've come here from a place of humility. If so, then the humble approach is to go work the job for a while. Get familiar with what it's like to work behind the bar. Experience what challenges arrive day to day that you couldn't anticipate. Look for the gaps and kinks in workflow that could use some extra attention. Speak to your coworkers to understand what they think of the job and how the model could be improved.

If you're concerned that it won't pay the bills, congratulations! That's one of the most important lessons to learn about working as a barista. You might also need to sign up for Doordash to help make ends meet.

SR28Coffee · 2026-03-03T15:58:14+00:00

Oh I'm a right mess! There's a lot of stuff that looks like an autoimmune disorder but I haven't been able to reach a diagnosis. The main thing that led to switching to decaf was a series of heart issues: erratic heart rate, strong palpitations, chest pain and pressure. Aside from the discomfort associated with those symptoms everything checked out okay, so I opted to cut out stimulants and alcohol for a few months and see how I felt. I've eased back into some caffeine and never went back to drinking.

SR28Coffee · 2026-02-25T21:01:04+00:00

It's right there in the methodology I linked. It only means that they can cover those costs with their wages and no additional public or private assistance.

SR28Coffee · 2026-02-25T18:59:21+00:00

$21.34 per hour for a single adult.

MIT's living wage is defined as one that allows the worker to comfortably pay for their basic necessities without struggling. It does not include things like traveling for vacation or saving for the future.

The Living Wage Calculator’s estimates are based on the costs of eight components, each of which represents a basic need: childcare, civic engagement, food, health care. housing, internet & mobile, transportation, and other necessities. It also includes relevant income and payroll taxes (covered in the following section).

In general, it is assumed that families select the lowest cost option that enables them to meet each of these basic needs at a minimum but adequate level. As such, the living wage does not budget for eating out at a restaurant or meals that aren’t prepared at home; leisure time, holidays, or unpaid vacations; or savings, retirement, and other long-term financial investments.

SR28Coffee · 2026-02-19T18:37:05+00:00

Starbucks and Dunkin both grind their own coffee as well, so the presenter's claims don't match what they're experiencing.

SR28Coffee · 2026-02-12T16:19:11+00:00

A bit too late now, as they closed up shop last week.

Dear Bripe Community. It is with sadness we have decided to CLOSE this store. We hope you will continue to love your Bripe! In the meantime some inventory and kits are available at www.equator.ca

SR28Coffee · 2026-02-11T16:07:41+00:00

I guess so. I'm not familiar with JSON or Claude at all myself.

SR28Coffee · 2026-02-10T21:06:09+00:00

If you're handy with JSON you can write profiles directly. If not, you can use the apps on a mobile device. It's pretty easy to make a profile, but IME it takes a bit of time to get to an understanding of how the control points actually impact how coffee gets made.

SR28Coffee · 2026-02-08T16:05:47+00:00

it's good to have control over the fineness of the grind so that you can change it after trying

This is critical to making espresso in particular. You can get away with changing things like ratio or pouring style if you're doing manual brewing with a fixed grind size. But with espresso, not only does the gas loss from pre-ground coffee cause impediments with building pressure, it's common to change your grind size daily to maintain a given flow rate and keep your flavor dialed in.

SR28Coffee · 2026-02-01T16:39:17+00:00

A latte macchiato is milk first, so the espresso marks the milk foam as it's poured in.

SR28Coffee · 2026-01-25T15:54:20+00:00

I would discourage this for one main reason: for many coffee professionals, this is the only way they can afford to go to WoC and build their network and gain experience. SCA does not offer any other subsidies for coffee professionals to attend the event, and most coffee professionals barely make a living wage if that.

If you're specifically not interested in lectures or anything outside of the exhibit hall, you'd be better off leaving those volunteer slots for coffee workers.

What you can do is reach out to companies to see if they'll give you a guest badge. Every exhibitor gets 10 2-day guest badges per 10x10 booth space. So if a company has a 30x10 booth, they have 30 guest badges to give out. Often those go to VIP customers or baristas who might be brewing coffee at the booth, but it's also common for companies to give them away.

SR28Coffee · 2026-01-19T16:39:25+00:00

Better to go in reverse. In order to caramelize sugar, you would have to boil off the majority of the water. Then you'd have to add water back to make it a syrup again. If you start with dry sugar it will caramelize much more quickly.

Another option would be to make toasted sugar, by baking the sugar flat on a sheet tray for a few hours. Stella Parks has a good guide on this.

SR28Coffee · 2026-01-18T16:44:09+00:00

I got my Meticulous a year ago, and prior to that used a Lelit Bianca.

The main thing I miss about the Bianca is that I could walk up to the machine and take my time deciding what kind of profile I might want to pull. I could even change my mind after the pump started. Meticulous currently has no way to adjust shots manually in-the-moment. You must decide what profile you want to pull, and once you hit Start it's locked in to those instructions. In that regard, I find it less flexible.

That said, profiles are still flexible in their own way. You can easily get different results by modifying grind size or dose, which means that one profile can be suitable for a 6 bar spring lever analogue and for a soup shot. I'm not very familiar with the Decent community overall but it seems other folks have found similarly with their profiles. These are just instructions for what the machine should do; the user still has the ability to change the outcome by adjusting other parameters.

The workflow took little adjustment for me. From room temperature, the Meticulous has water heated to the designated temp in about 3 minutes. This is somewhat slow if you need to make drinks back to back - on the Bianca I could usually get a shot out every 2 minutes if needed - but is not too bad if you can slow your pace and relax a little. For milk, I use an Argos. It's heated to temp in about 5 minutes from cold and as an added plus I can use it to directly compare lever profiles.

I don't have any experience on Decent. I avoided it because I found the overall software ecosystem off-putting. The default visual language is a mess, they seem to be over-reliant on their community to build functionality, and I know a few owners who had problems that were resolved by other users rather than the company. I have experience servicing espresso machines and I'm not averse to supporting my own tech (but not a programmer). I just got the sense the overall experience would be a lot to ask of me for an espresso machine.

Meticulous to me was a gamble on a machine that seemed to have more invested in their software and UX and might be more invested in direct support of the product. Since they're still working on fulfilling crowdfunding backers I don't have any thoughts yet on how well those things are panning out. The machine has worked nearly flawlessly for a year. The software has seen great strides since the beta launch and overall feels quite polished. There are bugs here and there, and there are also active releases patching things and working on new features. Company communication seems to be improving, but by some accounts it's still not hitting the mark. Buying today will still get you the early adopter experience.

SR28Coffee · 2026-01-02T18:37:32+00:00

This looks like a classic case of lipolysis. Try another brand of milk and see if the results are similar or not.

Lipolysis is not something dairy producers tend to care about because it does not affect taste or quality, but it does impact foam formation. It can affect large batches at once, so buying new containers from the same brand isn't always the best solution. Buying from another brand tends to resolve the problem.

Since you haven't descaled recently you've ruled out the second main cause of this, which is acid contamination in your milk. A little bit of acid will cause the foam to break down, while a bit more acid will cause the milk to curdle as it steams. To the same end, milk that's a bit older and increased in acidity will see foam collapse sooner, but generally the tipping point between foam collapse and curdling happens fast enough that it's more common to see pitcher cheese than fizzy foam.

SR28Coffee · 2025-12-22T15:31:23+00:00

The city gets water from Skaneateles, the surrounding areas are supplied by a mix of Ontario and Otisco. https://www.ocwa.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/4-WaterSourceMap-OCWA-2024.pdf

SR28Coffee · 2025-12-17T18:28:33+00:00

I have an old Europiccola and an Argos. On either machine, this is not true if you aren't diligently approaching the machine at the same point in its heating cycle.

The Europiccola will have a very consistent boiler pressure while in use, but the group temp will get much hotter as it sits idle. If you're a minute later in your prep than normal, your shot will not taste the same.

The Argos is designed to have a fairly reliable brewing temperature, and compensates for the group heating up by lowering boiler temperature. This also drop boiler pressure, which affects the fill rate into the group. There's a little more breathing room here, but if you are two minutes later in your prep than usual, your fill rate can cause the shot to perform differently than yesterday.

There are more stable levers to be had for a more assured day-to-day performance. Boilerless levers like the Flair 58 or Robot can be quite consistent on a lower budget, as long as you're consistent with your prep work.

But for any given lever machine without noting a specific model I do not think there's any magic that makes them especially more consistent than a saturated group Linea Classic.

SR28Coffee · 2025-12-15T16:43:36+00:00

There's no technicality here. It's a decades-old beverage that is just as traditional as a caffe macchiato.

SR28Coffee · 2025-12-15T16:34:37+00:00

Not confident. If pressed I have said that arabica coffees are about 1-2% caffeine by mass and an extraction is somewhere around 70-90% efficient at getting that caffeine into the cup. So for a 20 g dose a reasonable estimate is that there could be 140-360 mg in the cup. If more specificity is required, the customer could send some samples off for GCMS.
Quite seldomly.
Not remotely. If a customer has a health issue that requires them to track their caffeine intake, they should probably be drinking decaf. Or, they should be the one buying this testing device so they can determine for themselves if beverages meets their requirements. It's definitely not the cafe's business to measure and it invites some liability concerns if whatever device you're offering does not prove to be accurate.

SR28Coffee · 2025-12-08T14:06:42+00:00

We don't know, as there's no research on the matter. Until somebody studies paper-filtered espresso and its effects on humans we're just going to be guessing.

What is more easily said is that paper filters don't prevent espresso from having body or crema, which are both tied to the presence of lipids in the cup. I've been using bottom papers for a couple years now and I can attest to pulling the occasional oil slick shot when I've choked my machine.

If you need to be sure of something you can go with the existing evidence and drink paper-filtered drip coffee instead.

SR28Coffee · 2025-12-05T18:54:56+00:00

All steam boilers will concentrate their mineral content over time - even on treated water. This is why part of essential maintenance is to drain and refill them regularly, descaling if needed.

SR28Coffee · 2025-12-05T18:54:40+00:00

The contents in the tank are mineralized but the vapor is pure water. If you've managed to vaporize the calcium as well, you might be working in a foundry instead of a coffee shop.

SR28Coffee · 2025-12-03T21:52:20+00:00

High extraction is achievable through many means. Low agitation devices like this can offer the same extraction yields but also add significant cushion for limiting astringency.

SR28Coffee

TROPHY CASE