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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

coffee

Bellwether’s Coffee Roaster Blossomed During the Pandemic, Doubling Installations

Independent coffee shops were hit hard by the pandemic last year. In October, Euromonitor International predicted that the U.S. would have just 25,307 coffee/tea specialty outlets by the end of 2020, a 7.3 percent drop year-over-year and the first such decline since 2011. While giants like Starbucks had the resources to weather the pandemic, smaller independent chains bore the brunt of COVID-19 fallout.

Given this dark backdrop, you might think that Bellwether had a bleak year as well. The startup makes a compact, connected, electric and ventless professional coffee roasting machine meant for independent cafes — like the ones that shut down last year. But actually, Bellwether didn’t just survive the pandemic, it thrived.

“We ended up having a really good year,” Bellwether CEO, Nathan Gilliland told me by phone this week. “We grew revenue a bit over 100 percent last year and installations doubled.”

Gilliland attributed this growth to a number of factors. First, at the start of last year, the company introduced a rental model. Previously, coffee shops could only buy or long-term lease Bellwether’s machines. The new rental model is more expensive than the leasing option, but it also comes with just a one-year commitment (as opposed to five), which proved more enticing to customers. Gilliland said that the majority of new installations in 2020 were rentals.

Another reason for Bellwether’s growth was who its customers were selling to. During COVID, in-house dining/drinking operations were shut down across large swaths of the country. With their consumer traffic down, cafes started selling their roasted coffee to local grocers.

Perhaps sensing and opportunity, in the fourth quarter of last year, Bellwether itself decided to start targeting grocers as potential customers. Since the Bellwether is the size of a vending machine and runs automated roast programs from the cloud, the device is relatively plug-and-play. You don’t need to have a staff of coffee experts to operate it. Roastery (née Carbine Coffee) was another electric ventless roaster that launched around the same time as Bellwether, also targeting grocers. (Roastery’s fate is unknown at this point as its website is just a picture of the device with no text, links or other information.)

In addition to the machine itself, Bellwether also makes money through its green coffee bean marketplace. Gilliland said that 85 percent of Bellwether’s customers order green beans through Bellwether, and 65 percent of those order more than half of their green beans through Bellwether. The Bellwether machine roasts six pounds of coffee at a time, and the average Bellwether customer roasts 100 lbs of coffee per week.

With the pandemic receding, Gilliland and Co. are looking ahead to the rest of this year. In addition to more people actually sitting inside coffee shops, another reason the future looks bright for Bellwether could be stricter environmental regulations. Cities like Seattle and San Jose have banned natural gas from being installed in new commercial constructions, creating an opportunity for the all-electric Bellwether to step in as a way for small shops to have their own roaster.

Gilliland is also looking abroad. The company will begin expanding outside of North America this year, with machines going to Southeast Asia and Japan. Additionally, Bellwether is looking to create an iTunes-like experience for its roasting recipes. Coffee shops will be able to upload and sell their particular roast programs via Bellwether, which others could pay for to download and use. Specifics have yet to be determined, but there would be a rev share for roast creators.

Without a doubt, 2020 was a bad year for independent coffee shops. But perhaps Bellwether’s growth could be, well, a bellwether for better times ahead for the industry.

Blue Hill Brings Computer Vision to Its Coffee Robot to Recreate the Barista Experience

There is no shortage of robot baristas coming to market. Cafe X, Costa Coffee (née Briggo), Truebird, Crown Coffee, OrionStar, Cafe Rozum, FIBBEE and MontyCafe to name just some of the ones we’ve covered. But Seattle-based Blue Hill aims to differentiate itself from other players in the space by using computer vision to make a smarter machine that recreates the human barista experience.

We should start of by saying that when it comes to computer vision, Blue Hill has the bona fides. Blue Hill Founder is Meng Wang, who was previously CTO and Co-Founder of Orbeus, which developed the Rekognition computer vision/image analysis system. (Orbeus was acquired by Amazon in 2016 and became AWS Rekognition, which has become controversial in its own right.)

Wang is applying his computer vision pedigree to coffee. Like other robo-baristas, Blue Hill’s system (dubbed “Jarvis”) features an articulating arm that grabs cups and operates a La Marzocco espresso machine. But unlike other robots, Blue Hill’s arm is aided by robust computer vision which not only assists with item recognition, but also helps the articulating arm act more like a human barista.

As Wang explained it to me over video chat this week, Blue Hill’s computer vision means that things like milk or cups or spoons don’t need to placed in a specific area in order to be found by the robotic arm. The arm can open a fridge and identify “soy milk” wherever it is placed inside just by looking. Or if the grinder is moved, the arm doesn’t need to be re-programmed because it recognizes the grinder and can still operate it, no matter where it is. As long as the robot knows what to “look” for, the system can be set up to accommodate different shapes and spaces.

But Wang says the other advantage with its computer vision is its ability to train the articulating arm. By examining video of human baristas making coffee, Blue Hill’s robotic arm can replicate those same movements. The high pull, the frothing, the milk blending, even the latte art can be recreated by the robot by watching humans do the same thing. It uses the same coffee equipment used by specialty cafes, it just has a robot handling them.

The reason for all this high-tech robotic re-creation is that at the end of the day, Blue Hill wants to be in the high-end coffee business. It’s not just about the robot, it’s about creating a perfect cup of coffee. Blue Hill even sources and roasts its own beans. To be fair, Blue Hill isn’t the first company to tell me that they want to create a premium coffee experience delivered by robot. Briggo had its own line of coffee beans too, and Cafe X had a human on hand at each kiosk to curate a customer’s coffee choice.

But Blue Hill is more interested in building up its own brand of automated coffee experiences, rather than licensing out the technology to another coffee company. That choice could be a tough hill to climb for the company as people don’t know what a Blue Hill is and robots are still very new. As a result, lots of people will need to learn that a) robots can make coffee, and b) getting Blue Hill’s brand of robotic coffee is a better choice than finding a nearby Starbucks (a drink they’re already familiar with).

Blue Hill sticking with a premium, human-like experience also means that they are sacrificing a certain amount of speed. Right now, Blue Hill is focused on opening its kiosks inside other retailers like the Super Joy Coffee Lab or Swee20 desert shop, both in Portland, OR. But if Blue Hill wants to move into more high-traffic (and more revenue generating) locations like airports and office buildings, having a robot that behaves like a human sacrifices the speed you get with automation. Will people want to wait for a robot to make their latte like a human would? Perhaps, if the coffee is good enough. But people in those situations are typically more about speed than precision drink crafting.

Adding to the pressure, the robot coffee space hasn’t exactly worked out so far for some of the early startups. Briggo was quietly sold off to Costa Coffee with nary a whisper, and Cafe X shut down all of its locations last year (though it re-opening some and shipping machines off to Asia).

Will Blue Hill’s computer vision and premium cup of coffee be enough to bring in repeat customers? We’ll have to wait and see for ourselves.

Food Tech News: New Asian e-Grocer, Oatly’s pre-IPO Starbucks Rollout

Umamicart, a new Asian e-commerce grocer, launches in NY metro area

This past week, the new Asian e-grocer Umamicart launched in the NY metro area, and its next-day grocery delivery service is now available in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and Delaware. The platform offers Asian pantry staples, meats, seafood, tofu, fruits, vegetables, snacks, and drinks, with around 500 different grocery items currently listed. Umamicart also sells kits for making different meals like sushi, dumplings, hot-pots, and Mapo tofu. The platform requires a $30 minimum purchase, and orders less than $49.99 will be charged a $6.99 delivery fee.

Photo from Wix Restaurant’s website

Wix Restaurants Acquires SpeedETab to help enhance online restaurant presence

Wix Restaurants (a subsidiary of Wix) is a website builder for restaurants, and this week the company announced its acquisition of SpeedETab, a tool that allows restaurants to integrate online ordering into existing platforms. The addition of SpeedETab will allow restaurants signed up with Wix Restaurants to streamline orders from multiple channels, manage offline and online orders, and integrate various restaurant POS systems.

Photo from Oatly’s website

Oatly rolls out in Starbucks nationwide before IPO

Oatly, producers of oat-based vegan dairy products, announced this week that it had reached a deal with Starbucks to serve its oat milk in all Starbucks throughout the U.S. Starbucks will feature Oatly’s non-dairy oat milk in several new drinks, including the Iced Brown Sugar Oatmilk Shaken Espresso and Honey Oatmilk Latte. Oatly milk will be available on Starbucks ‘ menu year-round, as it is now part of the core menu. Oatly uses a proprietary process to create its oat milk that incorporates certain enzymes to break down finely milled oats, which results in a naturally sweet and creamy non-dairy milk. The company filed for its initial public offering last week, the details of which will be shared with the public in the next few weeks.

Photo from SIMPLIFY The Brewer’s Kickstarter campaign

SIMPLIFY the Brewer launches on Kickstarter

A first glance, the new coffee brewing equipment called SIMPLIFY the Brewer from Bathtub Coffee looks like a transparent pour-over. However, this brewer was meticulously designed by a former professional barista, Ryo John Ito. Other pour-over brewers depend on the coffee “bloom” (splashing a small amount of hot water over grounds to allow the degassing of carbon dioxide) for a good cup of coffee, and the pour-over brewing method often takes three to four minutes to complete. SIMPLIFY the Brewer’s design includes a larger opening for coffee to flow through and minimal contact between the brewer and paper filter. As a result, a strong cup of coffee is brewed in one to two minutes, which is convenient for busy coffee shops. The Kickstarter campaign for the coffee brewer is live, and pledging ¥2,720 (about $26 USD), guarantees a SIMPLIFY the Brewer shipped to you in May 2021.

Demetria Raises $3M to Automate Coffee Bean Analysis

Demetria, a startup that promises to automate the analysis and grading of coffee beans, came out of stealth yesterday and announced that it has raised $3 million in seed funding. The round was led by Celeritas and a group of private investors including Mercantil Colpatria, the investment arm of Grupo Colpatria.

As coffee beans move through the supply chain, their quality has traditionally been judged by “cupping.” In this process, a human with proper certifications selects samples of beans and judges them based on factors like aroma, acidity and flavor. As you can imagine, this process is slow, wasteful, and because it’s done by experts, not globally available.

It also means that coffee bean quality and pricing is a subjective process, which can incorporate any number of human biases that can affect the prices paid to farmers and across the supply chain.

Demetria aims to automate this process by using near-infrared scanning and cloud-based artificial intelligence analysis to develop “digital fingerprints” of coffee beans. As green coffee beans move through the supply chain, they are analyzed with a near-infrared scanner to look for biochemical markers to match a bean’s profile with an industry standard set of quality metrics.

This means that bean quality can be quickly assessed with a handheld scanner and mobile phone. What’s more, beans do not have to be taken out of the supply chain to tested via cupping. Instead, they stay, reducing waste.

We’ve seen this type of AI-based scanning in the food supply chain elsewhere. Most recently, Driscoll’s announced that it was using Consumer Physics’ SCiO technology to scan berries for sweetness. Consumer Physics’ handheld scanner is one of the tools being used by Demetria.

Other companies in the space include AgShift and Intello Labs, both of which use computer vision and AI to assess food quality and bring objective grading to buyers and sellers.

In its press announcement yesterday, Demetria said it has successfully completed a pilot with Carcafe, the Colombian coffee division of agricultural commodity traders Volcafe/ED&F Man. Demetria said it is also working with Federación Nacional de Cafeteros (FNC), the Colombian National Federation for Coffee Growers, to develop apps that help farmers and their transaction points in the supply chain control and track bean quality, and price.

Technologies like Demetria’s can hopefully bring more fairness to the food supply chain by speeding up the process and standardizing the analysis so everyone gets paid a fair price.

Terra Kaffe Raises $4 Million for Pod-Free Grind and Brew Coffee Maker

Terra Kaffe, a New York based startup that makes grind and brew coffee machines, has raised $4 million from The SeedLab, an early stage venture capital firm focused on consumer products.

The company had previously raised $575,000 in a seed funding late last year, and the new round of funding brings the company’s total to just under $5 million.

Last year, company CEO Sahand Dilmaghani showed me their coffee maker, the TK-01, and I liked what I saw. I also liked the fact that it was shipping, something that wasn’t the case (at the time) with my long-overdue Spinn.

Both machines are part of a growing category of grind and brew (also called superautomatic) coffee makers that make espresso-level coffee with the convenience of a Nespresso or Keurig, but without the plastic waste of pod-based systems. Nespresso and Keurig have come under fire in recent years for how much plastic they push into the waste stream, and while both are trying to make their pods more environment-friendly, it makes sense (and better coffee) if you can just grind from fresh within the system when you’re ready to brew.

In researching the TK-01 and the grind and brew market, one thing I noticed is how Terra Kaffe’s machine resembles a few other early grind and brew appliances on the market. And when I say resemble, I mean looks like an exact replica from an outward physical standpoint.

I asked Dilmaghani about this and he told me when he was getting the company off the ground, he didn’t have enough funding to custom design an entirely new coffee machine. This meant getting creative.

“The whole development is a story of trade offs,” said Dilmaghani in a phone interview. Instead of paying a company to create an entirely new product, they worked with a Chinese ODM (original design manufacturer) to build the hardware system architecture using some off the shelf parts such as brew unit and chassis (why there are others that look like the Terra Kaffe). Dilmaghani and his team focused on software, the UI and the overall consumer experience.

“I was like, ‘let’s prove out the market that there is an opportunity here'” said Dilmaghani. “Let’s work with as much off the shelf as possible, give people some awareness that this can sell DTC (direct-to-consumer), that it isn’t the Nespresso model that I have to lose money on the machine and only make money with recurring revenues. That you can make money on the product, and it can be a viable business.”

It’s a much different approach from Spinn, who designed a coffee maker from the ground up. The end result was a long drawn out design and manufacturing ramp-up process that took years to bring their product to market. In contrast, the TK-01 was available and shipping last year, and, according to Dilmaghani, has sold in the thousands.

And I imagine it’s this early sales success, not a complicated piece of hardware, that mattered to the company’s newest investors.

Briggo’s Coffee Haus Becomes Costa Coffee BaristaBot

It looks like British coffee chain and Coca-Cola subsidiary Costa Coffee has acquired Austin, TX-based coffee automation company, Briggo.

We are still hunting down an official announcement, but the Briggo website is now re-branded as Costa Coffee (hat tip to the Food By Robots Twitter account). Briggo’s CoffeeHaus automated kiosk has been replaced with the Costa Coffee BaristaBot. Briggo also made an announcement on Twitter.

We have reached out to Briggo to find out more.

To date, Briggo had raised $19 million in funding. Its coffee robot was among a new wave of standalone automated kiosks that were looking to re-invent the vending machine by combining robotics with higher-end food. Part of Briggo’s pitch, when it first started out, was that in addition to building its coffee robot, it was also a coffee company that selected and roasted its own beans.

Briggo had Coffee Hauses up and running in a number of locations around Austin, including two at the Austin-Bergstrom Airport and one at the San Francisco International Airport. Briggo had formed a partnership with SSP America last year to open up new kiosks in 25 airports over the course of this year and next. In January of this year, Briggo’s CEO told me that his company was going to open up five new loations in Q1 of this year.

That, of course, was before the COVID-19 pandemic hit and airline travel was decimated. So how many of those locations went up or are still live is unknown. Rival robot coffee kiosk company, Cafe X, shuttered its remaining airport locations and laid off staff. That said, Cafe X has re-focused and has plans to deploy 150 robots across Asia over the next two years.

With its deep pockets, Costa Coffee has the resources to expand and operate more kiosks than Briggo could have on its own. This story is developing and we will update as we learn more.

Bruvi Raises $2.2M in Seed Funding for it’s Single-Serve Drink System

Bruvi, a startup that makes its own pod-based single serve coffee/drink system, announced today that it raised $2.2 million in Seed funding at the end of July. This brings the total amount raised by Bruvi to $3.15 million.

Bruvi makes an internet-connected Keurig-like coffee system that uses eco-friendly “B-Pods” to brew individual cups of coffee, espresso, cold brew, teas and more. The Bruvi sells directly to consumers through the company’s website, with the Bruvi Bundle (brewer, 24 B-Pods and water filter) that will sell for $198. But you’ll have to wait before you buy, according to today’s press release, the Seed funding will go primarily towards manufacturing with a projected launch of Q3 2021.

There are two big hang-ups with B-Pods, K-Cups and any capsule-based single-serving system. First is the proprietary nature of the capsule itself. B-Pods won’t work in other devices and non-B-Pod capsules won’t work with the Bruvi. So buying a Bruvi means you’re locking yourself into an entire coffee drink ecosystem.

Second problem with these systems is the potential waste. Bruvi claims that it is overcoming this issue because its B-Pods are “Landfill Friendly.” The Orwellian-style nomenclature seems counterintuitive, but according to the Bruvi FAQ:

Our Bru-Pods are 100% recyclable and have been designed to be landfill friendly. That means no wasting resources with cumbersome rinsing or separating capsule parts; all you have to do is throw the whole capsule in the trash. When they hit the landfill, they will substantially degrade in 5 years instead of 500 years.

On the coffee side, Bruvi says that the coffee and tea inside those Landfill Friendly pods will offer “ethical and sustainably sourced coffee as well as licensed brand partners,” so there’s a chance your favorite roaster could have their own B-Pod if this device takes off.

Because the hardware itself is connected, the accompanying Bruvi app will let you brew your drink remotely, re-order pods and look at your drinking patterns, if that floats your coffee boat.

Bruvi is just the latest in a line of companies looking to improve your morning cup of coffee through fancy gadgets, access to specialty roasters, or creating molecular coffee in a lab. The good news for all you coffeeheads out there is that the pandemic has not actually impacted coffee crops so far. The bad news is that the pandemic isn’t going away anytime soon, but if you’re stuck at home this time next year, perhaps buying a Bruvi could make it a little more manageable.

Trade Raises $9M to Get More People Into Specialty Coffee

Trade, the online specialty coffee marketplace and subscription service, announced today that it has raised a $9 million round of funding. The round was led by Madrona Venture Group with participation from JAB and Launch. This brings the total amount of funding raised by Trade to $21 million.

Trade’s mission, as company CEO Mike Lackman explained to me by phone last week, is pretty straightforward: “Our goal is to create platform to get people to pay for specialty coffee,” he said. He lamented that a lot of people currently still treat coffee like a commodity even though there are a ton of other great roasters to choose from.

Launched in April of 2018, Trade offers coffees from more than 55 roasters across U.S. 38 states. Customers can get recommendations based on factors like roast or taste preferences, and order bags a la carte or via subscription. Trade facilitates all the payment, logistics and packaging, while the individual roasters actually ship the coffee. In May of this year, Trade sold its millionth bag of coffee.

I asked Lackman if the pandemic, which has forced more people to stay and work at home, has had an impact on Trade’s business. “We saw strong volume through Q2,” Lackman said, though the company didn’t see huge, panic buying-induced surges. “We were able to handle it, and much of that demand has sustained.”

Getting coffee online is not exactly difficult nowadays, and there are plenty of players already in the space including subscription services like Craft Coffee and Misto Box, broader online marketplaces like Seattle Coffee Gear, and roasters themselves like Stumptown.

With its new funding, Lackman said that Trade is looking to broaden the appeal of its services. “Making the tent bigger for specialty is important,” he said, “Our audience was very well versed in the world of specialty, but skewed more male.” Trade aims to balance out that gender gap and serve up specialty coffee to more people, no matter their taste or price point preferences.

Will Pure Over’s All-Glass, No-Paper Filter Coffee Device Win Over Crowdfunders?

There is no shortage of solutions out there promising to improve your morning cup of coffee. But that hasn’t stopped Pure Over from throwing its hat into the ring with a new pour over solution that launched on Kickstarter today.

Pure Over’s is pitching an all-glass pour over system that doesn’t require anything beyond ground coffee and water. In other words, no filters. The Pure Over uses a “cake filtration” system, so traditional filters are not necessary.

I spoke with Etai Rahmil, CEO and Founder of the Portland, OR-based Pure Over this week by phone. During our call, he explained the benefits of his all-glass setup. First, it cuts down on waste because you don’t need single-use paper filters. But also, “Paper filters are superfine, they filter out the oils,” Rahmil said. “The glass filter brings out more bold chewy mouthfeels. Like a french press.” Additionally, Rahmil said that since glass does not impart any flavors, like a metal filter might, you get a more unadulterated drink. “The only thing in your cup is coffee,” he said.

As noted above, we’ve written about a ton of coffee\-related Kickstarter products over the years. Many of these have suffered huge delays. (Hello, Spinn and Kelvin!) Others never reached their backers. (Hello Rite Press!) I asked Rahmil why his product would be different and why he’ll be able to make the difficult leap from prototype to full-scale production.

“We’ve been working on this for two years,” Rahmil said of the product, “I think that me being a glass artist, I’ve been able to prototype and design this in a way that makes manufacturing easier. There are no electronics. No plastics.”

Rahmil said that they’ve already done a small manufacturing run of 100 units to send out to friends and family and coffee influencers.

As with backing any crowdfunded hardware, caveat emptor, buyer beware. You can get your own Pure Over for pledge of at least $35, with units expected to ship in December of this year.

The Food Tech Show: An Almost All Coffee Pod: Spinn, Coffee Robots & Atomo

The Spoon team has a heavily caffeinated conversation for this week’s podcast. Here are the stories we discuss:

I also suggest new names for both Chris and Jenn (let us know what you think of Jenny Donuts).

As always, you can find The Food Tech Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. You can also download direct to your device or just click play below.

Cafe X Closed its Airport Locations and Laid Off Staff. Now It’s Planning for the Future

Cafe X has shut down its San Jose and San Francisco airport operations, laid off staff and made a number of other market adjustments as the company adapts to the new realities brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Henry Hu, Co-Founder and CEO of Cafe X told us via Twitter messaging that with airport traffic decimated, thanks to the coronavirus, the two airport locations have been closed for months. He is unsure when they will reopen. Hu says that they are still in talks with other airports for new Cafe X locations.

At the same time, however, Cafe X has also started taking pre-orders for machines on its website, which lists the price at $200,000 per robotic kiosk ($5,000 deposit required), and says they will be shipped in Q4 of 2020.

Hu said that Cafe X is not a franchise, the company is just selling the machine and providing support, which can include recipes and menus if the customers wants. Additionally, customers can still choose to purchase coffee and supplies through Cafe X.

This is a little different from when Cafe X first started a couple years back, when the company was not only offering robot-made coffee, but also had a human on hand to provide a more curated coffee experience. The plan at that time was for Cafe X to own and operate its own machines.

The actual physical shape of the Cafe X machine has changed as well. Gone are the rounded corners of the kiosk, replaced with more square right angles.

It’s been a tumultuous year for Cafe X. In January, the company shuttered its three downtown San Francisco locations to focus on its airport business, and now those locations are closed as well. Hu said that because of the pandemic, Cafe X laid off most of its staff except for the engineers.

There does seem to be some light at the end of this COVID tunnel for Cafe X, however. Hu posted a photo on Twitter today of one of its robot kiosks being shipped off to Asia. Hu wouldn’t provide many details, but said its part of a big project in Asia that will include 150-plus machines over the next couple of years.

As I’ve written before, I’m all-in on automated vending machines like Cafe X and Briggo, especially during these pandemic times. Businesses and consumers alike will be looking for ways to reduce human-to-human interactions when it comes to getting their food. Robotic kiosks not only remove one human from the equation, but also hold all of their food and other ingredients behind glass walls away from people. Additionally, robots can run all day without taking breaks (or calling in sick). Spoon Plus subscribers can read my full report on the future of vending machines.

The pandemic is far from over (especially here in the U.S.), so we’ll see if COVID, which negatively impacted Cafe X though most of this year, could also come to the company’s rescue.

NOTE: An earlier version of this article said that Cafe-X’s order of 150 machines was happening over the coming year instead of over the next couple of years.

Kickstarter: BeanBon Lets You Roast Coffee Beans on Your Countertop

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.