It has to be said: coffee and geekiness often go hand in hand. Sure, coffee as a consumer experience is slowly becoming more broadly accessible, but at the same time, the core approach to the endeavor of brewing is becoming ever geekier and more numbers focused. This is awesome, because geeks make really kick-ass toys. Excuse me, I mean, kick-ass “tools.” It’s also awesome because it means the industry is getting ever better at presenting outstanding coffees with depth, complexity and nuance, doing an ever better job of reflecting all the hard work put into each coffee bean on its journey from cherry to green to roasted.
Seriously though, the latest generation of coffee brewing devices is getting pretty crazy. And now, Aaron Takao Fujiki is trying to add “coffee brewing scale” to the growing list of extremely designed, deeply geeky tools in the serious coffee brewer’s arsenal.
His Kickstarter, “Acaia: The Minimalist Coffee Brewing Scale” launched on November 20th and is now at 10k of his 30k goal. The scale appears to be the product of some seriously deep consideration of just how one could go about making the ultimate geeky coffee scale. The scale features a Bluetooth 4.0 (low-power) connection, and Mr. Takao hopes that he will be able to go beyond the inital iOS scale display and recording app to make open API access and apps for Android and maybe even Windows Phone.
It’s not just geeky internals either–the physical design is definitely super minimalist and attractive. After using so many variably-responsive touch-button scales, I do somewhat question his decision to use the touch-buttons over manual ones, but he does claim to have considered that problem in the design phase.
But you know what? His scale design is definitely worth looking at if for no other reason than this:
Lithium-ion battery and standard micro-USB charger. Yes. Finally. This should be a standard required of every consumer electronics device ever, but still, if Mr. Takao has made this a feature of his scale, he has clearly done some serious usability consideration.
Now clearly one can only trust statements made on a Kickstarter so far, but Mr. Takao claims to have extensive experience in cellphone case and accessory design and manufacturing, and has some pretty cool pictures of going to the injection-molding factory to get the scale’s case made:
Oh yeah, and the iOS app looks pretty darn cute:
There’s a lot of crazy coffee ideas that make their way across the Kickstarters to be sure, and we here at Sprudge try not to endorse anything that we haven’t spent time with. You’re gonna have to make your own decision as to whether or not you want to plunk down $59 on the promise of someday receiving a “Classic White Acacia Coffee Scale”. But there’s no doubt about it: Mr. Takao seems like a big coffee geek who has some rather innovative thoughts as to the possibilities of what the ultimate coffee brewing scale can look like.
Learn more at Acaia: The Minimalist Coffee Brewing Scale on Kickstarter.
Alex Bernson (@AlexBernson) is Sprudge.com’s assistant editor.
