As specialty espresso purveyors and residential lovers have demonstrated a want to style as many great coffees as attainable, extra manufacturers have launched machines to automate the monotonous activity of dosing complete beans heading to single-dose grinders.
These new machines operate like scaled-down variations of automated whole-bean portioning programs lengthy utilized in roasteries for filling retail and wholesale baggage.
But their emergence could also be extra carefully tied to developments in grinding, together with the rise of grind-by-weight know-how in business machines and the rising variety of smaller single-dose grinders for high-end properties or nimble espresso bars.
Whereas grind-by-weight programs present correct dosing for high-volume cafe coffees that transfer by huge hoppers all through the day, they might not be ideally suited for at the moment’s “sluggish bars” with a number of espressos or pourover choices. For these purposes, measuring whole-bean doses for single-dose grinding has largely remained a handbook activity, requiring extra barista time.
Thus, early entrants within the automated whole-bean dosing class have typically pitched their merchandise as options for decreasing tedium and bettering effectivity whereas delivering dosing precision.
Acaia and Weber Workshops had been two of the primary established espresso tools manufacturers to deliver one of these doser to market, the place they’ve extra just lately been joined by manufacturers similar to BeanVibes, Madball Design and Muvna.
Right here we check out the merchandise which have to date helped outline the automated single-dose whole-bean doser class in addition to some rising new challengers:
Acaia Orion
Acaia Orion machines. Each day Espresso Information photograph by Howard Bryman.
On the 2017 SCA Expo, espresso tools maker Acaia received a Finest New Product award for the Orion Bean Doser, which mixes the corporate’s weighing know-how with a mechanism for beginning and stopping the discharge of beans from a top-mounted hopper.
The minimalist countertop dispenser weighs doses for brewing or retail espresso bagging, and at present sells for $950. The usual hopper might be swapped for individually offered hoppers starting from 250 grams to 2 kilograms.
Acaia, a California-based firm with department places of work in Taiwan, the Netherlands and Japan, has since expanded the road with the Orion Mini and Orion Nano, the latter of which received a Finest New Product award on the 2023 World of Espresso Athens occasion. The Mini at present begins at $950, whereas the Nano begins at $750. A number of Nano items can join by Orion’s Belt, a system for creating on-demand blends.
Weber Workshops Bean Counter
Weber Workshops Bean Counter. Courtesy photograph.
Excessive-end dwelling and prosumer espresso tools maker Weber Workshops rolled out the Bean Counter in 2019 as an accompaniment to its single-dose espresso grinders and Bean Cellar storage tubes. The metal-bodied Bean Counter incorporates a leather-handled teak lid for its hopper and an anodized aluminum dosing cup.
Progress is displayed on a digital display screen on the entrance of the system as beans land within the dosing cup on an Acaia-made scale. The Bean Counter is at present marked “offered out” on Weber’s web site, the place the worth is listed at $665. Weber Workshops informed Each day Espresso Information {that a} second-generation Bean Counter is within the works, with the corporate aiming for a launch by the tip of this summer time.
Madball Design MD-1 Espresso Bean Doser
The Madball Design MD-1. Courtesy photograph.
Hangzhou, China-based Madball Design launched the MD-1 Metallic earlier this yr by on-line retail platforms together with AliExpress, Amazon and Lazada. The Metallic is a higher-end model of the MD-1 Espresso Bean Doser, which was launched in 2025.
The MD-1 has a 200-gram-capacity hopper and dispenses doses with a said weighing accuracy of 0.1 grams. Its slim, upright design is meant for modular use, permitting a number of items to align facet by facet on a business espresso bar, with hooks for customer-facing playing cards figuring out the espresso inside.
The corporate was based in Beijing in 2022 by designers Lengthy Wong and Dana Xu, who later relocated operations to Hangzhou.
“The transfer was strategic,” Dana Xu informed Each day Espresso Information. “The south provides a much more vibrant espresso scene, fostering deeper collaboration and interplay inside the group.”
Together with handbook and planetary-geared WDT instruments, Madball Design has additionally rolled out MD-1 equipment, together with a battery pack and Bean Tube Direct Adapter for dishing out beans immediately into storage vials that match its Rotatable Show Rack.
BeanVibes Accountant
BeanVibes Accountant. Courtesy photograph.
The Accountant is a compact, 3D-printed machine that dispenses exactly measured doses of as much as 25 grams into its commonplace catch cup, or roughly 40 grams into an elective XL catch cup. The machine sells for $339 by the web retailer of San Francisco-based dwelling espresso accent maker BeanVibes.
The corporate is the eagerness venture of UCSF resident doctor Barrett Anderies, who launched the model in 2022 with the primary version of the Accountant.
“I had been a espresso fanatic for a number of years and needed to begin storing my espresso in [Weber Workshops] Bean Cellars, however I disliked filling them manually,” Anderies informed Each day Espresso Information. “Once I surveyed the bean doser market on the time, I couldn’t discover something that met my (scholar) price range or accuracy necessities, so I got down to construct my very own.”
Anderies 3D-prints and hand-assembles all BeanVibes merchandise in his condo. The product line now contains the Trickler slow-feeder for single-dose grinders and the Groundskeeper WDT instrument. In 2023, BeanVibes launched the Accountant V2, that includes battery-powered operation, improved electronics and wi-fi replace capabilities.
Muvna Dosecraft M-100 Doser
Muvna M-100 Doser knobs. Each day Espresso Information photograph by Howard Bryman.
Chinese language espresso tools firm Muvna launched the Dosecraft M-100 whole-bean doser at World of Espresso San Diego and has since proven it at a number of worldwide commerce reveals forward of its deliberate launch this summer time.
The M-100 options three particular person hoppers, every holding as much as 300 grams of espresso with a knurled, metal-edged button knob on prime that includes an embedded LCD show. Customers twist the knobs to regulate the dose, then press to ship the chosen weight of espresso right into a receptacle beneath every hopper.
An included accent funnel can direct beans from a number of hoppers right into a single receptacle for on-demand mixing. Pricing for the M-100 has not been introduced.
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Howard Bryman
Howard Bryman is the affiliate editor of Each day Espresso Information by Roast Journal. He’s primarily based in Portland, Oregon.
