There’s no shortage of quality coffee makers out there, with more and more people seeking to replicate the coffee shop experience at home. However, few have simplified it better than single-serve machines, albeit with the obvious caveat of recurring expenses (and landfill waste) for those proprietary disposable pods. The Spinn Coffee Maker looks to offer the same simplicity in a machine that doesn’t require the same proprietary aftermarket purchase.
No, it’s not a pod-based coffee maker. Instead, it takes whole coffee beans as the base ingredient, which it will grind and brew automatically on demand, allowing you to enjoy espressos, lattes, cappuccinos, and more at the push of a button.
The Spinn is a countertop appliance with a compartment on top for holding whole coffee beans, a small water tank, a dispenser at the base, and three capacitive buttons on the body. The three buttons correspond to the three main brewing options, namely espresso, double espresso, and regular coffee, so you can walk in to the kitchen and get a cup at the push of a button. Like many modern appliances, it comes with a companion app that you can use to get it brewing a cup remotely, so you can have it start making your coffee as soon as you wake up, allowing you to simply walk out of the bedroom and grab a fresh cup. As of the moment, there are over a dozen drink options available from the app, including espresso lungo, Americano, cold brew, and cortado.
But what about the lattes and cappuccinos and other fancy barista drinks? Well, it can’t make those automatically. Instead, you’ll have to use a separate milk frother and add them in to the finished espresso or coffee, with the app guiding you through the necessary steps. The outfit, by the way, sells their own milk frother, which will probably be a good idea to get if you plan to use their app for all your coffee drinks.
The Spinn, by the way, has an integrated conical burr grinder, which automatically adjusts the grind quality based on the drink you’re making. It can also adjust the grind setting based on the coffee beans you’re making, although it requires you to upload a photo of your coffee beans to the app. For making the actual coffee, it uses centrifugal brewing, where the freshly-ground coffee is spun with water inside a chamber at speeds of up to 5,000 RPM, with the speed for each brew depending on the kind of recipe you’re doing (faster for stronger drinks, slower for drip coffee).
The app provides alerts for any maintenance tasks required for the appliance, such as when you need to refill the water tank, put more coffee beans, or empty the residue bin. For cleaning, it requires a special maintenance kit that consists of a cleaning fluid and a descaler, which it will prompt you to use at an estimated frequency of once a month and every six months, respectively.
Originally a Kickstarter project, the Spinn Smart Coffee Maker is available now.
