Currently buzzing its way through the specialty coffee social media noosphere, meet the HG One Hand Grinder, a thoroughly sweet-looking conical burr grinder with heirloom caliber construction, low ground retention, and absolutely no electricity required. There’s a whole heaping helping of information available on HG One’s easily navigable (and surprisingly, charmingly personal) product launch website:

As a society we take more than we need, live for today rather than tomorrow, and throw away more than we keep. Todayโ€™s pace of technology perpetuates a cycle of obsolescence and encourages wasteful behavior. We want to help break this cycle. The HG one project hopes to build something you would be proud to hand down to the next generation.

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The HG one grinder frame is constructed of three quarter inch thick 6061 T6 aluminum that is sandblasted and anodized to provide a tough outer shell. Hardened steel gears on stainless steel shafts connect an eight and a half inch diameter flywheel to the conical grinding burrs. The CNC milled burr assembly and gear housing, along with four industrial grade sealed bearings, ensure precise alignment of the grinding elements.

Our friend Ben Helfen, of Counter Culture Coffee Atlanta, had a chance to play around with the HG One recently, and let us in on a couple of cool hands-on details:

  • It takes around 20 seconds or so to hand-grind 18-19 grams.
  • Though likely marketed for espresso, Mr. Helfen and Co. dialed in a serviceable pourover with the HG One.
  • Grind loss is minimal – 19 grams in yields 18.9 grams out, with a loss of only about a tenth of a gram.

Top-flight functionality and industrio-minimalist Brewhaus design? It’s enough to get thoroughly excited about, though you may want to start saving now. The HG One will run users around $850 USD per unit, a price point that may keep it out of all but the most dazzling of coffee lab dazzle tours. We imagine the HG One looking quite at home at a showcase gallery, such as Clive Coffee’s mod showroom in Portland, Intelligentsia Chicago’s mid-century throwback Monadnock cafe, Blue Bottle’s Asimovian Williamsburg moon deli, Houndstooth Coffee’s slick hexagonal service port in Austin, or Roger Sterling’s all-white office at Sterling Cooper Draper Price.

Which is not to say it wouldn’t look nice in your kitchen…think of it like a Hans J. Wegner chair for your coffee habit.

Pre-order information is available here. Follow them on Twitter @hg_one_project

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