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Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Chime

Chime’s Chai Maker Brews Excellent Tea. But Is it Worth the Coin and Counter Space?

The first thing you notice when drinking a chai tea latte made with the Chime is how complex and robust the flavor is, and that all those chai tea lattes bought at chain coffee shops mostly just taste like . . . sugar.

But no matter how good the Chime’s chai is (and it is very good to my taste buds), it’s still a big ask for consumers to spend $200 on a device that takes up precious counter space and only does one thing. So, is it worth it?

Let’s step back and walk through the machine itself. Crowdfunded via Indiegogo, the Chime is just starting to ship its first batch to backers this month. It’s roughly the size of a coffee maker and has three main columns: a water tank, a control panel, and a steeper that empties down into a separate carafe. The controls are all on the device, which is something we like here at The Spoon (no WiFi to connect or account to set up). While there is a Chime mobile app that will connect via Bluetooth, it’s mainly for storing customized recipes, using those recipes on other Chimes, and re-ordering loose leaf tea pods ($10 – $12 for a ten-pack).

Yeah. Sadly, the Chime uses plastic pods to make its delicious tea. This is the main bummer with the appliance. Using a plastic pod each time feels wasteful, and locks you in to ordering your tea through Chime. And the machine knows whether you’ve put a pod in, and won’t start brewing until you do.

I’m not going to fault a company for trying to get some recurring revenue via tea sales, but Chime is a startup that built this machine through crowdfunding. If they go under for whatever reason, you’re left with $200 brick.

Tea still left in the Chime pod.

There were other problems I encountered with the pods as well. The foil covering the pod is thin, and one broke open inside the box in transit spreading loose leaf tea everywhere. Also, on more than one occasion, when I smashed the pod down in the machine to release the tea into the steeper, a fair amount of leaves were still trapped in the pod, dry as a bone. So the tea wasn’t brewing to full strength. Finally — and this is a real nit-pick — but in the Chime variety pack, each flavor has a different color. But all the colors are flat, muted earth tones, and it can be difficult to tell the bright orange cap from the more subdued orange cap.

If and once you can get past the pods, the Chime is actually very straightforward and easy to use. The main control is a jog wheel/button that you use to select your drink size, tea strength and how much milk you want to use. The screen then tells you how much milk to put in the carafe.

Put the carafe in the machine, smash the pod down and push the button. Water trickles into the steeper where it is heated to the right temperature and for the right amount of time. The milk in the carafe is heated via induction burner and frothed with a clever little circular spring that spins at the bottom of the basin. There is a circle of lights around the knob that countdown how much time is left and after 3 – 5 minutes a gentle chime (natch) lets you know your drink is done.

I realize my American tastes may not be expert at identifying “good” chai, but I tried every flavor in the variety pack and all were excellent. One was a plain black tea, one had cardamom, another had ginger. Each had a distinct flavor and were delicious. And while the Chime relies on pods, you can add your own ingredients into the steeper to customize your drink. So if you wanted to ratchet up the ginger, you could shred some into the steeper before smashing the pod.

While the drinks were uniformly excellent, there were some hangups that illustrated how this is a crowdfunded machine that hasn’t quite scaled up and perfected its manufacturing. In addition to the pod problems mentioned, the pod smashing mechanism wassn’t smooth. It doesn’t neatly lock into place and you have to give it a little extra push.

Then one time, the water lever in the brewer got so high that it leaked out of the locking mechanism. And there was the time the steeper didn’t drain (though to be fair, I “hacked” the machine by leaving an empty used pod in and poured powdered tea into the steeper, this may have clogged the drain).

The machine leaked at one point.

So, chai lovers, is the Chime worth it?

If you consume a lot of black tea or chai and have some extra counterspace, then yes, for sure. It’s not just the convenience of making a frothy latte with the push of a button in minutes, it’s also the fact that the tea Chime offers is really tasty.

If you’re more chai-curious, I would say wait until the company can get the appliance into more of a mass-production mode. I’ve chatted with Chime Founder and CEO Gaurav Chawla, and he’s aware of the pod problem, and at least from how he runs his crowdfunding campaigns, Chawla puts his customers first. Trusting the founder goes a long way towards trusting a startup, but right now there are enough little hiccups with the machine, and the bigger question of spending $200 on a crowdfunded device that may or may not be around in five years, that should give most people pause.

Chime Does Right By its Crowdfunding Backers, Delivers First Product Next Month

Chime is doing the right thing when it comes to asking people for money. I wish that didn’t make them stand out in the world of crowdfunding, but it does, and hopefully other Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigners will take note and learn to be more like Chime.

Chime has developed an eponymous connected countertop Chai tea maker. The device uses tea pods to precisely brew tea and heat (any kind of) milk to deliver what the company says is “authentic chai made from real tea leaves.” There’s even an accompanying mobile app so you can customize your tea and even make tea with any Chime device.

But lots of companies make products and get them crowdfunded. So what did Chime do right? Well, first of all, they are actually delivering what they promised. Going from a prototype to an actual manufactured product in the market is sadly not always a given in the crowdfunded hardware space (see: Rite Press, iGulu, HOPii). The Chime tea maker is already in production, with the first shipment set to arrive in January and the second batch of pre-orders slated for April.

But perhaps more impressive was the way Chime respected its backers. I spoke with Guarav Chawla, CEO and Founder of Chime, who told me that instead of crowdfunding his company, Chime only used the crowdfunding platform just for the product. It kept people’s money off to the side and raised investor money to run the company. “We didn’t want to take money and then if it’s late, people get impatient,” Chawla said, “So if people wanted money back, they could get it.”

I wish this was an approach more companies would take when crowdfunding hardware, as it shows a level a respect for customers and can help placate them should any problems occur.

Chime did indeed encounter production problems along the way, but instead of going back to backers and asking for more money, Guarav was able to get additional seed money from investors.

There’s just one thing Chime does that, while I won’t say it’s wrong, is unfortunate. The device uses single-serving plastic capsules to hold the tea leaves. Chawla is aware of this plastic problem, but said that there was currently no other food-grade material available to maintain the tea’s freshness. Additionally, he said, that unlike other pod brewing systems, the Chime’s tea extraction happens in a separate chamber in the device, and not the capsule. This means the capsule stays clean and can be recycled. “We haven’t found a compostable material yet. As soon as that happens, we’ll switch,” Chawla said.

Now we’ll just have to see if customers think spending that much for their chai is the right thing. People interested in the Chime can visit the Indiegogo page and pre-order a device for $199 through the end of the year for April delivery.

Move Over Coffee Pot, Chime Is The Keurig For Chai

Coffee gets all the glory – the fancy machines, the social media memes, the cute mugs. But outside the U.S., different forms of tea are even more popular than coffee. First created in India, chai tea is renowned for its unique, spice-based flavor and has a cult-following of devotees across the globe. The team at Camellia Labs believe that the chai tea latte is just as special as a cup of coffee and deserves its own unique experience and they inveted Chime, the first authentic chai tea brewer to create just that.

INTRODUCING CHIME - AUTHENTIC CHAI IN 3 MINUTES!

Like a Keurig or similar cup-based brewing machine, Chime is a single touch brewer. Chime simmers milk for the beverage while combining whole tea and spices in a brewing chamber. When the two are ready, the milk and steeped tea come together for the ultimate chai tea. The machine uses recyclable capsules called Chime Caps that are filled with Indian tea, similar to K-Cups. The current flavor lineup includes black tea, cardamom, ginger, cardamom ginger, and masala.

Chime lets users tweak the temperature, strength and milk content of the beverage to further customize their chai tea latte. The system adapts to a user’s chosen preferences and remembers for the next cup. With Chime, Camellia Labs is looking to increase the chai market presence and make chai tea more accessible to people who are currently unfamiliar with the drink to create a whole new wave of fans of the unique beverage.

To learn more about Camellia Labs and Chime, visit http://brewchime.com/

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Here’s The Most Exciting New Coffee Tech Of 2017

Ready for a jolt of innovation with your morning caffeine fix? Good thing, because 2017 looks like it could serve up a double shot of disruptive coffee technology.

Due to a combination of emerging taste trends, technologies, and good timing, 2017 is shaping up to be an exciting year in the world of coffee. Here are the products that I’m most intrigued about:

Spinn Coffee

(Update: Read my November 2017 update on the status of Spinn here). Spinn Coffee is a San Francisco startup that is expected to ship its centrifugal brewing system this summer to early backers.  The Spinn coffee maker uses the same centrifugal technology that Nespresso uses in its Vertuoline coffee and espresso maker line (Nespresso licenses the technology from Spinn), only instead of creating a centrifuge within the pod, the Spinn uses its patented technology within an internal centrifuge system.

The new machine will grind whole beans for each cup and brew the consumer’s choice of espresso or drip coffee. The centrifuge spins the brewing coffee spins at a high rate within the chamber to extract flavors from the ground coffee beans.

As would be expected from a modern coffee maker, the Spinn is connected and app-controllable. The company is also working to develop a coffee marketplace that delivers beans from local roasters. While the first batch of Spinns is sold out, the company has made a second batch available for preorder that is expected to ship in the second half of this year.

Spinn - The key to the Best Cup of Coffee

Bonaverde Berlin Roast-Grind-Brew Machine

(Update: You can see our November 2017 video review of the Bonaverde Berlin here). Bonaverde is one of the connected kitchen’s longest running crowdfunding sagas, having raised funding for its roast-grind-brew coffee machine back in 2013. While over two years late, the company finally started to ship to beta testers (aka Kickstarter backers) and are fine-tuning the product for a broader release.

The Bonaverde Berlin is a unique idea and will test just how far coffee lovers will go for a unique cup of coffee. While the home coffee roasting movement has picked up steam in recent years, the typical method for home roasting is to use a dedicated home roaster.  By combining roast-grind-brew into one single device, the Berlin will certainly provide extra convenience and space savings for those interested in home roasting, but it’s too soon to tell how many average consumers are willing to go this far for a unique and fresh cup of coffee.

The Berlin, which will be available to non-Kickstarter backers at the end of this year, will run for $800 or more at retail. The device requires its own special filters to mask the roasting smell as well as – at least initially – that you purchase the coffee pouches from the company that can cost between $1 and $5.  Consumers will eventually be able to insert their own beans to roast, but for now users of the Bonaverde will need to buy their green coffee through the Bonaverde curated marketplace.

You can watch a CNET video review of the product below.

Seva Coffee

In many ways, Seva is a similar concept to the Bonaverde Berlin in that it has created a roast-grind-brew machine that starts with green coffee beans and delivers a full cup of coffee, but the main difference being that Seva uses a proprietary capsule system. The capsules, which are compostable (unlike traditional Keurig based pod system), will allow the user to create a single cup of coffee, unlike the Bonaverde system which brews between 5 and 8 cups with a pouch of their coffee.

Pricing and availability for the Seva Coffee machine are currently not available.

Dash Cold Brew Coffee Machine

While companies like Toddy have enabled consumers to make cold brew coffee at home for decades, a recent surge in interest in the low-acidity coffee brewing method has some wondering if there’s a faster way to make coffee than the usual 8 to 12 hours required for a cup of cold brew.

Enter Storebound, the company behind the PancakeBot and the SoBro connected coffee table. The company showed off a prototype of its Dash Rapid Cold Brew Coffee Maker at the Housewares Show, a device that is expected to short cut the process of cold brew coffee to 10 minutes.  According to Digital Trends Jenny McGrath, the Dash Cold Brew machine uses something called ““cold boil” and lots of filtration.”

Storebound isn’t the first company to take a swing at a quick cold brew machine. First Build, the incubation group for GE that created the Paragon precision cooker, had a fast cold brew prototype called the Prisma that it came about $3 thousand short of funding on Indiegogo last fall, which caused them to put the brakes on development.

Chime Chai Tea Maker

Ok, so admittedly I’m cheating here by including a chai maker, but hey, who doesn’t like chai tea? The Chime connected tea maker, which is expected to start shipping later this year, uses a pod-based system that allows you to brew a highly optimized cup of chai.

Jacked-Up Nitro Cold Brew Keg System

Since so many us like our beer to taste like coffee, it’s only natural that we’d eventually have coffee that tastes like beer.  Or, at the very least, coffee that has a Guinness-like head in the form of nitrogen-injected coffee.

While nitro-injected coffee has been gaining in popularity in recent years, it’s still hard to find unless you live near an adventurous coffee bar. But don’t worry, you can always make nitro-coffee at home if you’re willing to try some of the early nitrogen coffee makers such as the Jacked-Up Nitro. The system, which is available online through a home brew specialty retailer, is available today for $230 and looks fairly straightforward to operate.

However, being the tech nerd that I am, I’m still on the hunt for a home nitro system that is connected and doesn’t require me to go to a home brew specialty shop. Who knows, maybe there’s an innovative startup (hint hint) that will create one that I include in my top coffee tech list of 2018.

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Chime Wants To Make You A Cup of Chai With Its Connected Brewer

Some say it’s important to be focused when you’re a startup. Chime is planning to put that theory to a test with its first product: an app-controlled chai brewer.

How does the connected chai maker work? The Chime makes chai tea by using individual chai tea pods (called caps) and allows the consumer to adjust the milk ratio and the strength of the brew.

You can watch the Chime in action here:

In a way, this kind of focus makes sense. There are hundreds of nearly indistinguishable coffee makers on the market but exactly none – at least that I know of – push-button chai brewing machines. Chai also requires a little more work than your traditional Earl Grey type of cup, which means some might be willing to pay for the convenience of a chai-bot.

Is the market big enough? Chime founder Gaurav Chawla believes so, pointing out that the US chai market is $1 billion. While that’s a fraction of the $90 billion global tea market it’s substantial nonetheless, especially if there aren’t any specialized pod-based chai brewers currently on the market.

Still, there will be challenges. I believe the biggest test for Chime will be getting consumers to trust a startup enough to be willing to bet on them as the sole source of their chai tea. Chime requires the end user to buy the chai caps – which will cost 90 cents a piece – from the company itself, not a big deal when you’re Keurig or Nestle, but a bit more of a leap of faith if you’re a startup.

Either way, I’m interested to see how Chime does later this year when they ship. I caught up with Chawla to ask him a few questions.

See his answers below.

Wolf: When is Chime expected to ship?

Chawla: Chime is expected to ship towards the end of the year.

Wolf: Do you have any retail relationships established?

Chawla: We do not have retail relationships currently. Our plan is to sell directly to the consumers initially.

Wolf: Can you tell us anything about the typical profile of the preorder customer for Chime?

Chawla: Our typical customer is tech savvy chai lover who knows what real chai is and cares about the taste of chai and the ingredients that go into making a great cup of chai. Our consumer cares about the quality of chai and wants to make their life easier by having a device that can make their chai without all the hassle. Our typical pre-order customer doesn’t shy away from new technology and believes technology exists to make their life easier.

Wolf: Your business model looks like it will depend on your own modules (Caps). How do you expect to raise awareness? I also expect some would have doubts about a startup as sole provider of chai – how will you overcome these doubts?

Chawla: We are doing online community building but we will also be doing events and taste testing from time to time. We have already started testing the tea blend and we will come up with a variety of tea blends. We chose from high quality tea and are working with tea suppliers who supply to big brands. We have already started establishing our tea supply chain and we will test it out before we launch.

Wolf: Have you raised financing and, if so, how much?

Chawla: We have raised angel funding of close to a million.

Wolf: What is your founder team background?

Chawla: The core team comes from varied background with a lot of experience in delivering consumer products, to enterprise hardware and software. Industrial Design, Mechanical Engineering, Software Engineering and Supply Chain management.

Wolf: How big is the chai tea market in the US? Globally?

Chawla: Globally the chai market is a big chunk of black tea market and in our estimate about $20B globally. The global tea market is estimated to be $90B. In the US our estimate is that the US chai market is over $1B. However, Chime is first of its kind product and we believe it has the potential to increase the chai market and make chai accessible to folks who don’t drink chai currently.