today we're going to review this the
niche zero grinder it's a grinder that
has confounded my expectations in a good
way so let me tell you about where this
came from this I first saw on IndieGoGo
and for that reason ignored because it
was from an unknown manufacturer it was
crowdfunding and it made some big
promises about fixing problems with
coffee and those three things together
ah giant red flag and I will broadly
ignore anything that has those three
things on crowdfunding or anywhere else
because most of the time it's just not
going to happen there's been a lot of
companies turned up new to manufacturing
gonna do something big and bold and I'm
gonna kickstart it or put it on
IndieGoGo and you get nothing you get
burned usually so I ignored it to my
detriment to be honest because for every
ruler that I have this probably an
exception and this might just be one so
I wasn't elekid I wasn't gonna review it
but then they got in touch and said did
I want a unit to try and I said no I
have a patreon which is amazing so thank
you to patreon supporters which means
that I can buy the equipment that I
review so it's an independent review and
I explain this to them and we agreed
that I would buy a unit and they gave me
a small discount for which I'm very
grateful but I still bought this and
this will be given away sort of to a
patreon backer so this thing is 500
pounds in the UK and chips I think all
over the world they do a 110 and a 220
volt model and for the money I have to
say compared to other grounds at the
same price point it's pretty small it's
pretty light it's about 5 kilos but it
feels very well-built feels very nicely
put together feels really solid it
sounds solid when it grinds it just
feels
good now design-wise I can't tell you
how to feel about how something looks it
looks like a kitchen appliance it has a
little bit of coffee grinder in there a
little bit of juicer in there too it
comes I think in just two colors a white
on a black but I like how it looks the
detail around the wood is nice it's
built by someone who's built things
before and this I think is really key it
might be a new company but Martin the
guy behind it has spent a long time
designing and building products and I
think that really really shows so it's
called the niche zero because it's big
promise is zero retention which we'll
get into also in a little bit now the
design I think is interesting because
design is about picking problems and
finding solutions for those problems
there's a whole suite of problems you
can look at with a coffee grinder and I
think the selection that they're chosen
to fix or attempt to fix here is a very
smart selection for example this is not
a grinder trying to fix dosing for you
you're gonna weigh your coffee beans put
them in grind them right the grinder is
gonna do no work to help you dose your
coffee whatsoever that's not a problem
it's interested in solving here what
they're really trying to do is get out
everything that you put in the whole
point of zero attention is that there's
nothing left inside which is mostly true
it's not entirely true there's always
going to be a little bit of retention
and even if you put 18 and a half in and
and get 18 and a half out that doesn't
mean zero retention that probably was
some coffee retained and exchanged and
replaced the old replaced by the new and
it retains a consistent amount but that
amount isn't very much so it is
definitely an espresso focused grinder
and so the workflow with this is very
very simple you've got an on/off switch
on the side you've got a lid under the
lid you have your bean funnel where
you're going to load your coffee and
once you've weighed it conical burr set
in here throw Matt saucony burrs in here
the funnel is also your grind adjuster
which is nice it's a stepless adjustment
with a little indicator on here as well
to see where you've been where you're
going and coffee in a close the lid
there's a little micro switch here and
turn it on it really is very very simple
and I think that's a really good
not only for longevity but in terms of
componentry let's go into this this is
well-built it's a good motor in here
it's a good set of burrs in here if you
like a conical burrs and that's very
nearly it with the exception one thing
which is this little thing here which is
your dosing cup which i think is
beautifully made because this is just
under 58 mils which means if you want a
dose from here into your portafilter
just put your porter filter on top
upside down and flip everything over
zero Messer a fuss it's a beautiful
little thing that should be available
with all coffee grinders the idea of
tipping ground coffee into a Porta
filter at the spill the mess the
kneading in an additional funnel all of
that noise I'm not interested in it I
like this kind of Zen approach of what's
the least I have to do to get great
results that's really a thing I like a
lot so let's talk about performance how
is it to use to make a coffee with well
as I said it is a conical burr set now
as the same burr says you might find in
a matte Saucony
and I am NOT a huge fan of conical burr
said compared to flat Birds my
preference has always been for flat burr
sets I pulled a bunch of shots with this
and I had some very very tasty espresso
with it I did push shots with this
against amethyst ones the kind of
benchmarking tool and I really liked the
shots that I got off this I slightly
preferred the shots of the mythos for
having a little bit more clarity to them
which isn't hugely surprising it's a
good flatbed grinder and really liked
the shots from it and the espresso blend
I was using was benchmarked against it
so the odds were stacked in the methis
ones favored but I really did enjoy the
coffee I got from this thing some really
nice shots didn't speed up too much in
the second half didn't show too much in
the way of signs of channeling I was
pretty happy with the shots that I got
from this thing I think there's a couple
of really neat clever little things here
adjusting the grind is very easy very
intuitive this spacing between sort of
dots and sort of guidance is good you
need to make a decent enough movement to
have a substantial change in grind so
you feel like you can tweak quite easily
which is kind of nice on this there is a
calibration function for the little dot
under here if you take it all the way
fine you can then adjust this bottom
ring so that it lines up with calibrate
and you should be pretty calibrated
grinder to grinder - grinder now
this wasn't perfect for me but it was a
pretty good starting place and pretty
good idea I think certainly you have way
more calibration than you would do with
most typical grinders that just have a
selection of random numbers from 0 to 9
that you're somewhere on at some point
so overall pretty happy and I spent most
of the time pulling shots in the middle
of the espresso region in terms of
things that I didn't like as much I wish
this held a little bit more coffee
because sometimes I wanted to make a
large batch of coffee with this I'll
often make a liter of coffee and I
wanted to use it for filter coffee and
it performs pretty well for filter
coffee again my preference might be for
flatbed grinders but I really enjoyed
the coffee I got from this but you can
just sort of get about 50 55 grams in
here I kind of wish it was just a nice
even 60 that's just me now if you do
want to grind for sort of a medium sized
batch of filter from a half liter up to
a liter you're gonna be to course for
the dial which is a bit of a shame I
know some people have started putting
dots on the other side of their dials to
sort of track where they're going with
coarser grind settings and I think that
might be an interesting improvement for
the future and I suppose one of the
bigger complaints that I have with this
is that it does suffer pop Corning a
little bit towards the end of grinding a
shot so those last few beans as they're
growing tend to bounce around quite a
lot can take a little while to suck them
through you're looking at at least a 20
second grind time for a 18 to 20 grams
of coffee so it's it's relatively slow
but not so slow that that's a problem
for me if I was pulling shots at home or
anywhere else but it does popcorn a
little bit and that means those those
beans do grind in a way a little bit
coarser than the other beans which isn't
ideal it's not a big problem like I said
it doesn't really damage the shots
generally but if you if you compared
let's say 18 grams of coffee that had
not popcorned at all by let's say
grinding 25 grams than stopping early -
18 grams that did have some pop Corning
in it then I would see a four maybe five
second variants and shot time as a
result so having maybe a better August
system sort of feed beans in I don't
really know what the answer is but I do
know that pop Corning does change your
grind a little bit and so the more
popcorn there
is the more variance you'll have as a
result that may be why some of the shots
don't have the same kind of clarity as
amethyst with a hopper full of coffee
you know grinding through like this in
any grinder that you'll grind through
will produce a small variance in ground
setting as a result of those last beans
having no force behind them kind of
driving them into the burrs no weight of
coffee behind them that's true on on an
ek that's true if you single dose to
mythos that's true if you single dosed
sort of anything really like a brats a
grinder or something like that those
last few beans on any grinder will
popcorn in some cases they popcorn more
than others that's all so that's
something I'd like to see addressed in
the future and and also I'd be
interested to see if they ever do build
a flat burr version of this grinder that
would get me very excited indeed but I
should give you a summary right like I
should give you a summary of how I feel
and to be honest charmed
I feel charmed by this grinder I just
really like it I like the way it's built
I like the design thinking behind it I
think it's really enjoyable to use if
you said how does it stack up against a
mal Koenig ek 43 what I would say that's
a very dangerous question to ask because
the ek is a nice set of burrs
accidentally designed by mal Koenig at
some point attached to not a
particularly compelling grinder the ek
is not beautiful it's heavy its
expensive it's not particularly
pleasurable to use it has a nice set of
burrs this is a pleasure to use this
sort of highlights a lot of the floors
of a grinder like the ek because of its
ease and pleasure of use and I give you
an example of just what feels nice and
simple
I've got a bag of coffee from a friend
and just a small bag and I wanted to
dial it in and so here I would dose 18
and a half grams grind 18 and a half
grams pull a shot and make an adjustment
that's necessary and yeah the retention
isn't completely zero there's Lobel
exchange happening there but it's so
little that you don't need to purge
between grinder adjustments right I
would adjust the grind and just grind a
fresh dose straight afterwards and I had
no issues with that it meant that very
quickly very easily I could dial in to
exactly where I needed to be with almost
no
excessive waste right I got a lot of
shots out of a bag of coffee and I don't
think I'm alone in people using this
grinder so from a waste perspective it's
pretty great the retention is certainly
low enough for me to be very very happy
with it other things any issues with
this retention it's just it's just a
pleasure to use and so yeah the way that
this works is that patreon that fund
each month lets me go and buy equipment
to review independently but I want to
keep this I'm not gonna give it away so
I'm gonna buy a brand new one to give
away to patreon backers and this one I'm
gonna keep I kind of just want it around
there's a lot of uses for a grant like
this for me and it's rare that I want to
add to my collection of stuff it's rare
that I want one more piece of kit in my
life I have enough stuff the whole point
of patreon is to give it away I don't
want to accumulate endless stuff the
good news is they build these in 110 and
220 volt which means that I can sort of
open up to patreon backers all over the
world it doesn't matter I'll ship it to
wherever it needs to go and I kind of
like that I get to give away a brand new
and then it can be white or black and
they can choose I'm gonna keep this one
though overall I'm impressed as a sort
of first-time product of first home
manufacturer
I think they've knocked it out of the
park the subsets flawless but it's great
it's very good and I I've just been
enthusiastic about it to other people
which has got to be a pretty good sign
so there you go that is my review of it
the niche Xero do you have a niche do
you have one of these how is your
experience so far are you seeing less
coffee wastage are you happy with the
shots that you're getting does the pop
Corning drive you crazy or does it not
bother you at all are you brain filter
coffee
niche zero grinder it's a grinder that
has confounded my expectations in a good
way so let me tell you about where this
came from this I first saw on IndieGoGo
and for that reason ignored because it
was from an unknown manufacturer it was
crowdfunding and it made some big
promises about fixing problems with
coffee and those three things together
ah giant red flag and I will broadly
ignore anything that has those three
things on crowdfunding or anywhere else
because most of the time it's just not
going to happen there's been a lot of
companies turned up new to manufacturing
gonna do something big and bold and I'm
gonna kickstart it or put it on
IndieGoGo and you get nothing you get
burned usually so I ignored it to my
detriment to be honest because for every
ruler that I have this probably an
exception and this might just be one so
I wasn't elekid I wasn't gonna review it
but then they got in touch and said did
I want a unit to try and I said no I
have a patreon which is amazing so thank
you to patreon supporters which means
that I can buy the equipment that I
review so it's an independent review and
I explain this to them and we agreed
that I would buy a unit and they gave me
a small discount for which I'm very
grateful but I still bought this and
this will be given away sort of to a
patreon backer so this thing is 500
pounds in the UK and chips I think all
over the world they do a 110 and a 220
volt model and for the money I have to
say compared to other grounds at the
same price point it's pretty small it's
pretty light it's about 5 kilos but it
feels very well-built feels very nicely
put together feels really solid it
sounds solid when it grinds it just
feels
good now design-wise I can't tell you
how to feel about how something looks it
looks like a kitchen appliance it has a
little bit of coffee grinder in there a
little bit of juicer in there too it
comes I think in just two colors a white
on a black but I like how it looks the
detail around the wood is nice it's
built by someone who's built things
before and this I think is really key it
might be a new company but Martin the
guy behind it has spent a long time
designing and building products and I
think that really really shows so it's
called the niche zero because it's big
promise is zero retention which we'll
get into also in a little bit now the
design I think is interesting because
design is about picking problems and
finding solutions for those problems
there's a whole suite of problems you
can look at with a coffee grinder and I
think the selection that they're chosen
to fix or attempt to fix here is a very
smart selection for example this is not
a grinder trying to fix dosing for you
you're gonna weigh your coffee beans put
them in grind them right the grinder is
gonna do no work to help you dose your
coffee whatsoever that's not a problem
it's interested in solving here what
they're really trying to do is get out
everything that you put in the whole
point of zero attention is that there's
nothing left inside which is mostly true
it's not entirely true there's always
going to be a little bit of retention
and even if you put 18 and a half in and
and get 18 and a half out that doesn't
mean zero retention that probably was
some coffee retained and exchanged and
replaced the old replaced by the new and
it retains a consistent amount but that
amount isn't very much so it is
definitely an espresso focused grinder
and so the workflow with this is very
very simple you've got an on/off switch
on the side you've got a lid under the
lid you have your bean funnel where
you're going to load your coffee and
once you've weighed it conical burr set
in here throw Matt saucony burrs in here
the funnel is also your grind adjuster
which is nice it's a stepless adjustment
with a little indicator on here as well
to see where you've been where you're
going and coffee in a close the lid
there's a little micro switch here and
turn it on it really is very very simple
and I think that's a really good
not only for longevity but in terms of
componentry let's go into this this is
well-built it's a good motor in here
it's a good set of burrs in here if you
like a conical burrs and that's very
nearly it with the exception one thing
which is this little thing here which is
your dosing cup which i think is
beautifully made because this is just
under 58 mils which means if you want a
dose from here into your portafilter
just put your porter filter on top
upside down and flip everything over
zero Messer a fuss it's a beautiful
little thing that should be available
with all coffee grinders the idea of
tipping ground coffee into a Porta
filter at the spill the mess the
kneading in an additional funnel all of
that noise I'm not interested in it I
like this kind of Zen approach of what's
the least I have to do to get great
results that's really a thing I like a
lot so let's talk about performance how
is it to use to make a coffee with well
as I said it is a conical burr set now
as the same burr says you might find in
a matte Saucony
and I am NOT a huge fan of conical burr
said compared to flat Birds my
preference has always been for flat burr
sets I pulled a bunch of shots with this
and I had some very very tasty espresso
with it I did push shots with this
against amethyst ones the kind of
benchmarking tool and I really liked the
shots that I got off this I slightly
preferred the shots of the mythos for
having a little bit more clarity to them
which isn't hugely surprising it's a
good flatbed grinder and really liked
the shots from it and the espresso blend
I was using was benchmarked against it
so the odds were stacked in the methis
ones favored but I really did enjoy the
coffee I got from this thing some really
nice shots didn't speed up too much in
the second half didn't show too much in
the way of signs of channeling I was
pretty happy with the shots that I got
from this thing I think there's a couple
of really neat clever little things here
adjusting the grind is very easy very
intuitive this spacing between sort of
dots and sort of guidance is good you
need to make a decent enough movement to
have a substantial change in grind so
you feel like you can tweak quite easily
which is kind of nice on this there is a
calibration function for the little dot
under here if you take it all the way
fine you can then adjust this bottom
ring so that it lines up with calibrate
and you should be pretty calibrated
grinder to grinder - grinder now
this wasn't perfect for me but it was a
pretty good starting place and pretty
good idea I think certainly you have way
more calibration than you would do with
most typical grinders that just have a
selection of random numbers from 0 to 9
that you're somewhere on at some point
so overall pretty happy and I spent most
of the time pulling shots in the middle
of the espresso region in terms of
things that I didn't like as much I wish
this held a little bit more coffee
because sometimes I wanted to make a
large batch of coffee with this I'll
often make a liter of coffee and I
wanted to use it for filter coffee and
it performs pretty well for filter
coffee again my preference might be for
flatbed grinders but I really enjoyed
the coffee I got from this but you can
just sort of get about 50 55 grams in
here I kind of wish it was just a nice
even 60 that's just me now if you do
want to grind for sort of a medium sized
batch of filter from a half liter up to
a liter you're gonna be to course for
the dial which is a bit of a shame I
know some people have started putting
dots on the other side of their dials to
sort of track where they're going with
coarser grind settings and I think that
might be an interesting improvement for
the future and I suppose one of the
bigger complaints that I have with this
is that it does suffer pop Corning a
little bit towards the end of grinding a
shot so those last few beans as they're
growing tend to bounce around quite a
lot can take a little while to suck them
through you're looking at at least a 20
second grind time for a 18 to 20 grams
of coffee so it's it's relatively slow
but not so slow that that's a problem
for me if I was pulling shots at home or
anywhere else but it does popcorn a
little bit and that means those those
beans do grind in a way a little bit
coarser than the other beans which isn't
ideal it's not a big problem like I said
it doesn't really damage the shots
generally but if you if you compared
let's say 18 grams of coffee that had
not popcorned at all by let's say
grinding 25 grams than stopping early -
18 grams that did have some pop Corning
in it then I would see a four maybe five
second variants and shot time as a
result so having maybe a better August
system sort of feed beans in I don't
really know what the answer is but I do
know that pop Corning does change your
grind a little bit and so the more
popcorn there
is the more variance you'll have as a
result that may be why some of the shots
don't have the same kind of clarity as
amethyst with a hopper full of coffee
you know grinding through like this in
any grinder that you'll grind through
will produce a small variance in ground
setting as a result of those last beans
having no force behind them kind of
driving them into the burrs no weight of
coffee behind them that's true on on an
ek that's true if you single dose to
mythos that's true if you single dosed
sort of anything really like a brats a
grinder or something like that those
last few beans on any grinder will
popcorn in some cases they popcorn more
than others that's all so that's
something I'd like to see addressed in
the future and and also I'd be
interested to see if they ever do build
a flat burr version of this grinder that
would get me very excited indeed but I
should give you a summary right like I
should give you a summary of how I feel
and to be honest charmed
I feel charmed by this grinder I just
really like it I like the way it's built
I like the design thinking behind it I
think it's really enjoyable to use if
you said how does it stack up against a
mal Koenig ek 43 what I would say that's
a very dangerous question to ask because
the ek is a nice set of burrs
accidentally designed by mal Koenig at
some point attached to not a
particularly compelling grinder the ek
is not beautiful it's heavy its
expensive it's not particularly
pleasurable to use it has a nice set of
burrs this is a pleasure to use this
sort of highlights a lot of the floors
of a grinder like the ek because of its
ease and pleasure of use and I give you
an example of just what feels nice and
simple
I've got a bag of coffee from a friend
and just a small bag and I wanted to
dial it in and so here I would dose 18
and a half grams grind 18 and a half
grams pull a shot and make an adjustment
that's necessary and yeah the retention
isn't completely zero there's Lobel
exchange happening there but it's so
little that you don't need to purge
between grinder adjustments right I
would adjust the grind and just grind a
fresh dose straight afterwards and I had
no issues with that it meant that very
quickly very easily I could dial in to
exactly where I needed to be with almost
no
excessive waste right I got a lot of
shots out of a bag of coffee and I don't
think I'm alone in people using this
grinder so from a waste perspective it's
pretty great the retention is certainly
low enough for me to be very very happy
with it other things any issues with
this retention it's just it's just a
pleasure to use and so yeah the way that
this works is that patreon that fund
each month lets me go and buy equipment
to review independently but I want to
keep this I'm not gonna give it away so
I'm gonna buy a brand new one to give
away to patreon backers and this one I'm
gonna keep I kind of just want it around
there's a lot of uses for a grant like
this for me and it's rare that I want to
add to my collection of stuff it's rare
that I want one more piece of kit in my
life I have enough stuff the whole point
of patreon is to give it away I don't
want to accumulate endless stuff the
good news is they build these in 110 and
220 volt which means that I can sort of
open up to patreon backers all over the
world it doesn't matter I'll ship it to
wherever it needs to go and I kind of
like that I get to give away a brand new
and then it can be white or black and
they can choose I'm gonna keep this one
though overall I'm impressed as a sort
of first-time product of first home
manufacturer
I think they've knocked it out of the
park the subsets flawless but it's great
it's very good and I I've just been
enthusiastic about it to other people
which has got to be a pretty good sign
so there you go that is my review of it
the niche Xero do you have a niche do
you have one of these how is your
experience so far are you seeing less
coffee wastage are you happy with the
shots that you're getting does the pop
Corning drive you crazy or does it not
bother you at all are you brain filter
coffee