Man I’d love to get this semi-affordably in Europe. Such a cool product. I use a Cafelat Robot for my morning brew and it’s consistently the highlight of my day. Manual espresso rules
In addition to my AeroPress I also regularly use a ROK espresso machine, which is pretty similar to the Cafelat I believe, and I can attest it's pretty awesome.
Espresso forge has even fewer moving parts, and no rotating bearing surfaces or arms that can snap. The moving part is a stainless steel rod with two EPDM o-rings on the moving surface. It will last several centuries given a supply of o-rings. The basket mating surface has a silicone gasket which lasts forever if you store the device in pieces after cleaning up the coffee grounds.
The prices on some of the hand pumps are wild to me. I feel like if I'm going to go the hand pump route, then I shouldn't be paying the same price as a Gaggia Classic Pro.
Seconded, love the ability to take it camping (car, the thing weighs a ton) along with a c40, and use standard-size baskets. Current favorite is a big bang[1] which leads to a very different resulting espresso than the stock basket - both great!
Oh nice! Expresso Forge is exactly what I've been looking for. I'm a big fan of manual, maintenance & electricity free coffee tools. Thanks for sharing.
Perhaps consider other options which don't require large force. I'm currently running a normal aeropress, from before the VC buyout, with a Fellow Prismo + paper filter, and i'm getting results which I'm very happy with. I use my forearm to press rather than hands. I've been happy enough i've avoided building a Gagguino[1], which I'm a super big fan of despite my distaste for vibratory pumps.
For no heater or lever, this compares relatively poorly to a Flair[2] in my eyes. I've found all this coffee stuff to be highly available used at a discount all along the Atlantic coast US.
Wow that site is incredibly annoying on mobile, just let me scroll ffs. Anyway, is this comparable to those portable pump action espresso machines? Thus seems quite a bit larger for minimal gain, at first glance, but I'd be happy to hear opinions on how it might be better (after all, it is bigger, presumably for some good reason).
