On Tuesday night at Café Grumpy’s Greenpoint location (193 Meserole Avenue, 718-349-7623), a handful of coffee professionals and a few unwitting customers witnessed the surreptitious New York debut of the Trifecta, a high-tech single-cup coffee machine from Bunn.
Tony Sanguedolce The Trifecta, a high-tech single-cup coffee machine from Bunn.This is Bunn’s surprising move to fill a gap created in March 2008, when Starbucks bought the Coffee Equipment Company and took its Clover machine off the market. In fact, the Trifecta could be described as a more muscular Clover with better lighting, though the two are significantly different. The solid, cylindrical machine looks like it came from the design studio of James Dyson, and when the brew cycle is running, it’s illuminated from within.
First, how it works: The barista doses coffee grounds into a basket, pulls down a macho clamp that seals a plastic tube against the basket, then pushes a button to start a preprogrammed brew cycle with three stages (the Trifecta), which Bunn executives term “preinfusion, turbulence and press-out.”
The turbulence provides the theater. After the tube fills with water, the coffee is agitated with an air jet – think hot tub – to facilitate extraction.
Every stage is programmable. For instance, the turbulence can be adjusted by intensity, duration and number of cycles. On Tuesday night, I had a cup of Brazilian Fazenda Chapadão de Ferro that underwent four seconds of turbulence at Level 7 (on a scale from 1 to 10) followed by a 10-second pause. The sequence was repeated a total of three times.
What about Level 5? For six seconds? Or seven? Followed by a four-second pause? A nine-second pause?
No wonder Caroline Bell, the co-owner of Café Grumpy, has a spreadsheet to help her and her staff keep track of all the variables. The idea behind the machine is to give the barista control of factors beyond basics like temperature and grind. After trial and caffeinated error, a program is entered, though even that can be adjusted on the fly.
I should note that this isn’t the first Trifecta to appear in public. Last week, one was installed at the Pi Pizzeria location in the Central West End neighborhood of St. Louis. It’s about 100 miles from Bunn’s headquarters in Springfield, Ill., a quick drive by the standards of the Midwest.
So far, Bunn has played its cards close to the vest. The company won’t commit to a suggested retail price (though it will be significantly cheaper than the Clover’s $11,000), and it won’t reveal where the next Trifecta will be installed, except that it will happen in a serious San Francisco coffee bar next week.
Bunn’s interest in the independents is notable. On Tuesday, Burger King announced that it would start to carry Seattle’s Best Coffee (which is owned by Starbucks) at its 7,000 locations. Café Grumpy has just three.
How did the coffee taste? I’m not sure I’m prepared to say. What I had last night was just the third cup made for the public. (Besides, James Hoffmann has noted that morning coffee has a chemical advantage.)
But the Trifecta is in use right now at Café Grumpy. If you go, tell us what you think.