If the first pandemic-spurred lockdown drove us all to bake bread, perhaps quarantine 2.0 will inspire people to roast their own coffee beans. If so, devices like the BeanBon could become all the rage.
Launching on Kickstarter today, the BeanBon is a countertop home coffee roasting appliance system that can roast up to 120 grams of raw coffee beans at a time. Users can choose from three modes:
- SmartMode: Select from one of eight pre-set profiles to roast coffee with the push of a button. Adjustments can be made in the accompanying app.
- Creator Mode: Lets users manually control different roasting parameters such as heat, exhaust levels, roast time, etc. Settings can be saved and shared with the BeanBon community.
- Guru Mode: Allows users to experiment with the roast profiles created by professional coffee roasters.
Any raw coffee bean can be used, and BeanBon offers a curated selection on its site for purchase. There is even a special “BeanBon X Champs” variety that includes a QR code to use special Guru Mode roasting instructions.
The Kickstarter for the BeanBon launched today, and you can pick one up for $699. Company materials say the device will start shipping in September of this year.
The BeanBon is the creation of a Taiwanese company called avigo, and we reached out to them because there were some details left out of their English-language press materials. Namely, they also didn’t include any information about the availability/cost/shipping of coffee beans to the U.S.
The BeanBon device and raw bean market is very similar to the Kelvin home roaster, which costs just $249 for for pre-orders (though the Kelvin doesn’t have a connected mobile app). The Kelvin is supposed to ship to backers next month, that’s almost a two year delay from the original ship date.
That’s good to know if you are interested in the BeanBon. Backing hardware projects on Kickstarter is definitely buyer beware because there are many risks associated with moving a prototype to production.
But given that this pandemic tragically doesn’t show any signs of slowing, there’s a good chance you’ll still be stuck at home (in the U.S.) whenever the BeanBon ships.
Ridiculously overpriced. .265 lbs at a time?! What are you roasting for chipmunks? You can get a behmor 1600 for $450 that will happily roast a pound.