GeneCafe CBR-101 (i Rosto)

[Andy]

Re: GeneCafe CBR-101 (i Rosto)

;D Not this one matey!

I hear that Sweet Marias are talking with the company too so I guess that you will get to see a local one just around the corner.

[Javaphile]

Re: GeneCafe CBR-101 (i Rosto)

Does anyone know a central venue that we could get a dozen CSrs together and their roasters?

How about Minnesota? It is right smack in the center of North America afterall! ;D ;D ;D

Java "Road Fried" phile

[Andy]

Re: GeneCafe CBR-101 (i Rosto)

Well the roaster saga continues. The company is not ready to send a digital one yet but are sending the manual one.

It turns-out that the manual one still uses a digital profile, it just uses knobs instead of the cute electronic buttons for the user input and costs AU$200-$250 less (taking freight, currency exchange, gst etc into account).

I look forward to it landing and letting other CSrs have a play.

Maybe aim for an August "ROAST-OFF". Does anyone know a central venue that we could get a dozen CSrs together and their roasters?

[Andy]

Re: GeneCafe CBR-101 (i Rosto)

...and if I get up to Sydney for the Aroma Festival Ill bring it for the sydney roasters to have a play too.

Well, I am heading for the Aroma festivities in Sydney but it doesnt look like the digital one will exist before then.

I still think this roaster shows some real promise and sort of admire the company for wanting to test it well before releasing it to the world.

With anyluck we get one of the first digital ones to ship and can get cracking (pun intended) on the review.

[benthx]

Re: GeneCafe CBR-101 (i Rosto)

The supplier has just informed me that the RRP on the digital version has not been set yet but will be something like US$550
(I have adjusted the prices above)

Without getting into a debate about customs duties again I can tell you from my experience that a couriered item over AU$400 will normally attract GST while a posted item will not normally attract GST until it hits the AU$1000 mark.  This factory uses couriers to ship their products.

Reviews… a lot of the allegedly “unbiased” reviews of items that I have read on other sites still have some level of inbuilt bias, heck even here the “unbiased hardware reviews” are often done by people that have to justify their expenditure!  I think I’ll get one of these to play with and hopefully be able to provide a good, fair review.  Of course the obvious problem is that should it be a lemon I would then have a moral dilemma on the ethics of selling it  

I concurr fully with Andy on this one.  Reveiws are nothing most of the time as an paid advertorial.

Let the experts decide(not me) who know about roasting..you guys.  

The Hi FI / HT industry is a major culperit to these unbiassed reveiws.  How can one ever be impartial when they are on ones payroll.

[Andy]

Re: GeneCafe CBR-101 (i Rosto)

and...
ill rosta
...if I manage to blow it up? ;D

I have ordered one and now we wait. It wont ship for a couple of weeks and then there is the freight time from Korea etc... maybe early July we will have it to try some test roasts.

I think the Melbounre July Cafe Day sounds like a good public debut for CSrs to have a play..... might even make it a "bring your roaster day"?

...and if I get up to Sydney for the Aroma Festival Ill bring it for the sydney roasters to have a play too.

Sounds like a plan!

[Javaphile]

Re: GeneCafe CBR-101 (i Rosto)

Good post Nessie. ;D

So what sticker will I need to put on the i-rosto to help the resale value?

il cafe rosta so it sounds Italian. ;D

Java "Apologies to the Italian speakers out there for my slaughtering of the language" phile

[LochNescafe]

Re: GeneCafe CBR-101 (i Rosto)

Good post Nessie. ;D

So what sticker will I need to put on the i-rosto to help the resale value?  

"Phillips Lady-Shaver Gold Edition"

Along with a sign that says "In great condition, but needs an electrical repair."

[Andy]

Re: GeneCafe CBR-101 (i Rosto)

Good post Nessie. ;D

So what sticker will I need to put on the i-rosto to help the resale value?

[LochNescafe]

Re: GeneCafe CBR-101 (i Rosto)

Andy wrote:
Reviews… a lot of the allegedly “unbiased” reviews of items that I have read on other sites still have some level of inbuilt bias, heck even here the “unbiased hardware reviews” are often done by people that have to justify their expenditure!


How DARE you, sir!!  I have never EVER encountered anything on this site that would imply snobbery of any description!  Every person here has chosen his or her weapons after exhaustive and intensive testing/consultaion and evaluation.  Have you EVER seen a post where someone who is happy with the coffee he/she produces with his / her lowly machine doesnt hanker after a shiny silvia or prosumer model merely because it would look nice on the bench? NEVER!!!  This is why those of us with "name-brand" machines grind off the labels and bash the casings up a bit lest we be described as snobs.

ONLY JOKING GUYS!!!
But seriously - and this has been skirted around a little in the last couple of months...
Imagine someone buying that new Sunbeam and believing it to be a great machine - (and also imagine that it is - because it probably is!!) telling their friends who ask what type of machine they have that theyve got a Sunbeam.  Like saying Ive got a Breville Juicer or a Ronson shaver.  NO cachet, no curious look or raise of the eye-brow, or knowing nod or confused shake of the head that one would get when they said "Rancilio" or "Giotto" etc.

My God!! Itd be enough to make a sane person wish theyd bought a Silvia just to avoid the embarrassment!

In other words, no matter how good a machine a manufacturer of general appliances makes their machine, itll never be good enough for some. Or.. no matter how well, how conveniently and how reliably a superauto works, itll never be good enough for some.  Try convincing the owners of low-end Mercs and BMWs that their cars are no better than a Toyota or a Holden.  They simply wont have it.

Know what I mean folks??!! ;D

[Andy]

Re: GeneCafe CBR-101 (i Rosto)

The supplier has just informed me that the RRP on the digital version has not been set yet but will be something like US$550
(I have adjusted the prices above)

Without getting into a debate about customs duties again I can tell you from my experience that a couriered item over AU$400 will normally attract GST while a posted item will not normally attract GST until it hits the AU$1000 mark. This factory uses couriers to ship their products.

Reviews… a lot of the allegedly “unbiased” reviews of items that I have read on other sites still have some level of inbuilt bias, heck even here the “unbiased hardware reviews” are often done by people that have to justify their expenditure! I think I’ll get one of these to play with and hopefully be able to provide a good, fair review. Of course the obvious problem is that should it be a lemon I would then have a moral dilemma on the ethics of selling it

[garglebutt]

Re: GeneCafe CBR-101 (i Rosto)

Bear in mind that it might be cheaper to bulk buy and freight a group of them but buying one means you dont pay customs as it falls below the threshold.

I having a serious think about having another roaster next to my HOTTOP. Gee my wife is just going to love that!

Only real reticence at present is that I havent seen a review of this beastie. Some of the bits look a bit hard to keep clean and I havent seen any detail on the filter.

[Andy]

Re: GeneCafe CBR-101 (i Rosto)

Hey...
using one of the manual ones as the base roaster, how hard (errr... expensive) do you think it would be to modify it so that the profile could be computer controlled?

The ideal roaster for me would be something that roasted 500gms and got all its timings from an excel spreadsheet running on an old 486 laptop.... ohhh maybe even from an iPac pocket PC?

Better still if it also datalogged the roast as it happened, drawing pretty temperature graphs and curves that you could adjust... or even better, share them with other CoffeeSnobs.

It would be great to email the ideal profile to someone on the other side of the country and have them turnout a similar roast.

[Andy]

After Bens post about the i Rosto in another thread I have started speaking with the very helpful manufacturer of these roasters.

RRP for the manual version which is available now is US$450 (approx AU$600)

RRP for the digital version (which is still a prototype and wont be ready till near the end of the year) will be about US$550 (approx AU$730)

As a true bulk buy we might get these a little cheaper but the freight of 9kg roasters and the customs/GST is expensive and I expect the landed price will be close to the above quoted RRP.

This is a poll to judge the real interest in getting these into the country.

THE MANUAL VERSION:


THE DIGITAL PROTOTYPE:


The company website:
http://i-genesis.co.kr/rosto/