The 9Barista Espresso Machine Review

Overall this thing is very clever, and impressive. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it below.

Music:
"Honey Tea (Instrumental)" by Mozi

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[Barista]

James,
Thank you for taking the time to make this impressive, thorough review. It's great to hear you have good words to say about our machine!
One small thing - the ideal brew time is between 3 and 6 minutes. Any time in this window is ideal. Not just 6 minutes as you mention.
Also - if you're careful, you can grind and tamp your coffee whilst the boiler is warming up. That allows you to get the cycle time to ~4 mins.
Will & the 9Barista team

[springheeledjacques]

A steam-driven espresso maker, moderated entirely by a mechanical pressure valve and heat exchanger, in which the coolant is boiling water. The design absolutely stole my heart. What a beautiful piece of engineering.

[wilhelmtaylor]

I'm a recently retired mechanical engineer. My major at University was thermodynamics and compressible fluid flow. Lots of thermodynamics here and the steam certainly qualifies as a compressible fluid. I got on the website and studies the cross-section view. I'm impressed. As always one tends to think "why didn't I think of that?" Kudos.

[sushiburps]

3 years later and I'm still in love with this machine. James nailed it when he said the 9barista is for *you*, it's such a personal device.

[makatron]

That's the kind of design you get when you let an engineer make it functional first instead of a marketing team. That's just gorgeous!

[andreismithnow]

"They say 20g of coffee but I prefer 19g" God I love this man.

[Houndzee]

After watching these videos I don’t think I’ve ever had a decent coffee...ever.

[christianwilliams]

As a physicist, this is both something I absolutely need and something I cannot afford

[ryenschimerman]

I invested in this as my first espresso machine because of this review.. thank you James. The consistency of this machine has allowed me to really understand the variables in grind, coffee, and all the other variables of the magic bean. Without ever getting anywhere near mastery of course. You really are a blessing.

To anyone that buys the 9Barista though, watch this review x3 before you pull the trigger and really listen to what Hoffman is saying here. Then, read the instructions x3 before brewing, then follow along on your second or third brew. It's a fantastic machine, that can only do what it's promised to do.

[bassline]

That thing is one kyber crystal away from being a lightsaber. Elegant.

[christianb]

James' voice and general demeanor makes me think he could convince me to do some truly terrible things because, coming from him, they would sound reasonable. Don't start a cult James.

[Steril]

Had mine since yesterday, and had my perfect espresso with shit loads of crema on around third try. I have to admit that I watched a lot of videos in before on how to operate this thing, so no problem on my side.

I just love everything about this little device.
It's compact size, the fact it doesn't have any shitty electronics you can't repair yourself, it's sturdiness, and off course the amazing espresso it creates.

Certainly not for everybody, but for me personally it fits like a glove.

5/5

[GunSheppard]

My impression is that having the water move from bottom-to-top is probably beneficial for evenness of extraction. In my discipline of soil physics we often pass water through small, coffee puck-sized samples of soil as part of measuring their "hydraulic properties", before we do this we always saturate the cores from bottom to top - this allows for an even saturation of the soil sample and reduces the possibility of air entrapment. If there is gas within the sample it will essentially cause channeling. In theory (emphasis on theory!) this method of brewing coffee would allow for air and CO2 to escape more easily from the coffee and allow for a more even extraction through the puck.

[HitoriGnocchi]

im in absolute awe of how this is engineered. it did exactly what it was designed to do. theres something really cool about "analog" manual brewers. its "low-tech" but in an ingenious way.

[emananay]

My wife hears me watch a James Hoffman video and ask, “What are you going to buy now?”

[kowabungo]

I have one of these and it has proved a great thing to experiment with. It is a lot of fun for an avid home-brewer and, as you say, requires an iota of patience. However when it goes well, the feeling is wonderful as it does have capacity to deliver some quality home espresso. My dad did the photography for them so we ended up with 2 early units (including unit 0001 - still boxed!) and a slightly later unit too. The later unit (0207) seemed to perform more consistently, however I don't know whether that was partly down to me getting more of a handle on how to use it! I am glad to see this on the channel as Will and the team have done an amazing job and made an immensely beautiful item.

[Steril]

After having this for three months now, I have to say I have nothing but love for this thing. It's definitely not for everyone, but for me it's simply perfect.
Today I had my safety ring blown after I forgot to put water into it (I am sick and dazzled, didn't get much sleep last night, so forgive me ;) ), and I was able to repair it in like 5 minutes myself. And the rest of the machine looks like you can do most of the repair yourself as well.
In these times where stuff breaks never to be repaired again, and then polluting the environment, this is simply amazing.

I can see this staying with me the rest of my life.

[NevynsLab]

As an engineer I absolutely love this.
I want one just for appreciation of the engineering that’s gone into it even if I never got a good coffee out of it.
Is that weird?

[oleksiishekhovtsov]

I swear for a second I thought this was in my price range...

[andrewboyle]

I’ve had mine for over a year now, and it is by far the best home coffee equipment investment I’ve made so far. It produces phenomenal espresso shots, beautiful crema, and consistency every time.
For those that are hesitant on the cleanup and maintenance, it’s really not all that bad. I literally just enjoy my coffee in the morning while it’s cooling down and then knock out the puck, rinse out the porta-filter/chamber for a few seconds, and use the pressure valve to release the pressure in the bottom boiler—and I’m done. I use it every day and it is truly amazing quality and I’ve had no issues a year and 3 months into it.

For the price, you really cannot get better quality unless you’re going to spend in the realm of $1000+ on a new Breville. I don’t even have an espresso grinder (which saves me upwards of $200-$500) I use a Baratza Virtuoso and it works perfectly. Plus, it’s portable and I’ve taken this out camping, weekend getaways, traveling for work, etc. I’m immensely satisfied with it and can’t wait to see what additions they add (hoping for an exposed porta-filter in the near future 🤞)