Consider the duality of Kickstarter. It is a repository of knock-offs and retreads and just bad ideas in general; it is also a hotbed of innovation and cool, interesting new products you might someday want to try and purchase, especially in the world of coffee. We write about Kickstarter all the time on Sprudge as a jump-off point for a litany of home grinders, ideal water for coffee solutions, and oddball coffee products you didn’t know you needed. Truly, no coffee website in the history of mankind has written more about Kickstarter than this one.
Trawling the depths of Kickstarter for new coffee gadgetry often yields a whole lot of bupkis (and more smutty coffee table books than one would have imagined). But other times you hit the mother lode and you have too many weird and wild options to consider. This, luckily enough, is one of those times, and so we are taking a tour of the coffee’d halls of Kickstarter to look at three new pieces of equipment to enhance your coffee and espresso-making experience.
Portal: A Real-Time Coffee Brew Profiler
Making good coffee requires precision. Grams of coffee, milliliters of water, temperature, grind size, flow rate, these are the fundamental building blocks of a really good brew. But they alone don’t tell the whole story of what is going on between the kettle and the cup. And knowing what is going on there may be the key to reliably and repeatably producing the best brew.
Enter Portal. The “real-time coffee brew profiler” that provides instant information about what is taking place during the brewing process. Acting basically as a real-time refractometer, as coffee exits the brewer and into the Portal cone, the devices uses “electrical conductivity” as a means to measure the total dissolved solids during the brewing process—”based on the principle that solutions with more dissolved substances conduct electricity better.” It also measures temperature during the brew (as opposed to in the kettle) as well as flow rate in order to give an incredibly accurate picture of what is happening inside the coffee bed.
Created by Belka, the Portal has already raised over $50,000, five times its $10,000 goal. With a little over a week left in the campaign, rewards include a $140 discount off the $399 retail price. Units expect to begin shipping in September 2025.
Dream Kettle: The World’s First Flow Control Kettle
Speaking of flow rate, the kettle! The one piece of coffee gear that affects flow rate. And while the gooseneck is gold standard in the industry, they are not all built the same. Some are a little more user-friendly and give a wider berth on maintaining a steady, medium flow. Others offer a wider array of flow rates but required a more skilled hand. Then there’s the Dream Kettle, which offers a novel approach to changing the flow rate: a control knob.
The stovetop stainless steel kettle incorporates a stepless control knob to allow the user to choose the flow rate they are after. With a max capacity of one liter—and a “practical capacity” of 700ml—the Dream Kettle by Cafflano maintains a consistent flow rate regardless of the pouring angle.
With six weeks still remaining in the campaign, the Dream Kettle has thus far raised $2,000 of its $50,000 goal. But there are still rewards aplenty, including a 50% discount off the $59.99 MSRP. Should the campaign meet its goal, rewards will ship out in June 2025.
The Iris Espresso Shaker and Distribution Tool
Maybe your espresso routine needs a little shake up. That’s where the Iris Espresso Shaker by Repertoire Coffee comes in. More than just a maraca for your macchiato, shaking espresso, per the Iris, allows you to “densify your coffee grounds while rounding [the] smallest particles,” which “leads to improved clarity and extraction, making sure you get the most out of every bean.”
Essentially a dosing cup with a camera-like aperture on one end, all you do is grind your coffee directly in to the Iris and put the lid on and give it a little shake. Then, you place it over your portafilter and use the aperture release to neatly dump a fluffy mound of espresso into the basket. And voila! Better distribution, more consistency, and maximum flavor.
There are just two days left in the Iris campaign, and it is about $20,000 short of its $25,000 goal, so you’ll have to act fast on this one. You can reserve an Iris of your own by backing the Kickstarter for as little as $57, with deliveries for a successful campaign beginning in March 2025.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
