MATTER: UniTerra’s Nomad Manual Espresso Machine
Coffee is liquid sunshine.
Complex, energetic, powerful, magnetic.
Most of the complexity underpinning the broad variability manifested in coffee is invisible to us. The origin, let alone terroir of the beans we extract sunshine from, matters in a myriad of ways, yet remains obscured behind a veil of branding for a broad swath of coffee drinkers. While fair-trade, organic, and single origin coffee have shone light on the where and the how of coffee farming, the primary point of perceptible differentiation between coffees occurs as a result of the roasting process and brewing/extraction. Unlike other artisanal products, such as wine, whisky, cheese, and miso, we tend to have a significant degree of latitude to purchase coffee based on personal preference pre-brewing, due to the broad spectrum of roasting protocols that amplify the variations between beans.
So many options, so little time. . . . . It is little wonder that folks who’ve locked in their coffee preferences gravitate toward automatic brewing machines specifically designed to remove technique and variability from the equation, distilling the brewing process into simple, easily repeatable body movements: pour water into machine’s tank, press ‘ON’, place mug under spout, place pod into pod-receptacle and close, press brew button of your choice, enjoy coffee, just like yesterday and tomorrow.
It’s not hard to understand the allure of automatic machines. Coffee means different things to different people; that’s well and good. But for those who are compelled by the nuances of coffee - not least the process of discovery - automatic machines are anathema. For ‘coffee people,’ the ultimate question that will ultimately arise upon sipping a phenomenal coffee is: ‘How did this happen?’ And thus, reverse-engineering begins.
RITUAL DISCOVERY
Phenomenal coffee is often experienced while travelling, because the element of surprise, improved by the experience of a pleasurable discovery, falls somewhere on the spectrum of ‘peak experience. ‘ When we occupy unfamiliar space our senses are heightened, including our sense of taste. So we taste more keenly. Hence, ‘I had the best falafel ever in New York, from a street cart.’ Really, it wasn’t the best ever, but it felt that way. That was a unique experience, and it coloured future experiences, a disproportionately awesome baseline.
Coffees others make for us pose the potential to delight. When a barista at a cafe we’ve never been to creates an espresso drink for us, we’re hoping for a certain experience. If that experience is lackluster, we recoil. Fancy machine, crap coffee? WTF? I’m certainly not the only one who feels compelled to ‘right the scales of coffee justice’ be seeking out a ‘proper coffee’ after being served a crap one.
If we’ve had many a fantastic espresso at a cafe, the quest to create the same product at home will draw many in. This is where the reverse-engineering comes in. This quest is very much about delight, and the opportunity to create this sensation, not only for oneself, but, I hope, for others. Because making wonderful coffee for others is a special experience. The question is: how? How, because it’s not nearly as simple as A+B+C=D(elight).
Creating delight with coffee at home appears to many as a matter of downscaling cafe tools and methods for the home kitchen. If a big double-boiler machine is what pumps out the liquid gold at my favourite cafes, I must need a smaller version of what they use, a scaled-down one. Then, ‘all I have to do’ is figure out the roast/s I like best, get a quality burr grinder, work out the grind/roast/extraction interactive dynamics, get some perfect mugs, and I’ll be dialled!
Am I describing anyone you know?
That was going to be me. But I realized at just the right moment there might be another way. There might be a better way, a minimalist way. And I realized that the delight we derive from seeing and drinking great coffee is often more about consistently experiencing the unexpected, within boundaries we establish through experience. In other words, coffee lovers maintain preferences for styles of coffee drinks that manifest as spectra, and delight is experienced when coffee within a given spectrum - for example, long double espresso - tastes great, but does not line up with the flavour that was expected.
Curiosity drives this orientation to coffee. Brewing and extraction brings art and craft to the fore, into our hands, and turns the process of experimentation and discovery into a daily ritual.
MINIMA . MAXIMA
In a world of deep connection between cycling and coffee, complicated, expensive espresso machines have come to grace many a kitchen counter, supporting early morning departures and becoming focal points at the end of rides; great espresso brings people together.
I feel there is a growing demand for analog technologies, a relief from the digital. There's a real allure associated with being able to actually see what our machines are doing, and when they aren't working. Why?
My protracted hunt for a means of producing beautiful, crema-topped espresso at home on a tight budget carried me to UniTerra’s Nomad., which retails for $290 USD (on sale for $232 in Jan 2020). The thought of purchasing an expensive-yet-at-best-mediocre espresso machine for $400 - $600 did not sit right with me. As the only person in my family who drinks espresso-style coffee at home, and typically without any form of steamed milk, a mass-produced low/mid quality machine didn’t feel like a sustainable approach. I didn’t know whether there were any simpler systems for extracting espresso that could actually deliver cafe-quality shots; one can only trust photos and video of manual machines so far.
I enquired with UniTerra about testing their Nomad to determine whether the Nomad really is a viable alternative to more complex electric machines. I’d seen testimonials attesting it is, but I was particularly curious to find out how sensitive the machine would be to coffee freshness and grind. In other words, does the Nomad need the stars to align to create a beautiful espresso, or can it deliver consistent results for ‘normal’ coffee lovers, who might not be interested in going ‘full-nerd’ with their coffee?
The Nomad fits squarely with the sort of classic cycling technology cyclists resonate with, the halcyon years before gear shifting was electronic and everything was carbon fibre. This nostalgia is very much oriented around elegant, functional design, where nothing 'extra' is present, just the bare minimum for excellent performance.
A delightfully simple and elegant machine, the Nomad requires no electricity to operate, and compared to other machines (manual or electric), is less sensitive to grind coarseness and roast freshness with regard to crema production. It’s unique ‘True Crema Valve’ ensures home baristas have the best chance of producing beautiful crema through a simple lever-pumping action, which drives boiled water through the system.
Because it’s manual, the Nomad is knowable. That is, the physical connection required to make the Nomad work, versus the delegation of the work to electrical systems, informs one’s understanding of how and why espresso is produced well, poorly, or somewhere in between. For example, a grind that is too fine and/or too densely packed into the Nomad’s brew basket will not allow the water to pass through at the desired pressure, which the operator generates and can see quantified on the machine’s pressure gauge. The coffee will drip out slowly, over-extracted. This will inform the operator, in a very direct and tangible way, how to modify the grind and compaction. Taking the machine to this extreme allows us to learn to optimize the relationship between bean freshness, grind, and compaction.
There is a craft to be learned and honed, and it is very tactile with the Nomad. I think this is special, because it's about a physical bond with a technology that has its own character, and could well become an heirloom item. This craft can become part of an important morning ritual that is mindful, calm, and grounding. Careful attention to the process and the feeling of pressure in the hand becomes something well-learned. That said, the machine’s pressure gauge is vital to understanding what’s happening within the machine.
The Nomad is indeed small enough to take travelling or keep at the office, but don’t let its portability lead you to think of it as merely a travel machine. This beauty holds its own against the best electric machines in the world in terms of quality output; it’s simply not designed for pulling back to back shots at a cafe. However, with its water tank capacity at 300ml, you can pump out a full cup of coffee (60ml is a double espresso size) in one go if you wish, a fantastic feature for allongé lovers like me, and something not possible with any of the other manual machines I’ve encountered.
If you wish to pull multiple shots in a row, you can complement the Nomad with additional coffee drawers; bing, bang, boom! I’ve pulled espresso for three people in a row without issue; I keep the kettle on the boil between pulls.
For the folks who've been using AeroPresses, yet would also love to drink espresso drinks, the two approaches are complementary. The AeroPress creates ‘big coffees’, and the Nomad maxes out around a double-long (around 80ml). A 300ml coffee out of the Nomad would be quite diluted. Manual milk frothers work really well too, so a full-manual set-up could cover the whole spectrum of coffee experiences one might wish to create.
EXTRACTION RESULTS
My first pull, with far-from-fresh decaf, yielded better crema than I had at a cafe the same day(!), and my second, with fresher-but-not-very-fresh pre-ground beans produced more crema, and excellent flavour and consistency. The quality of my extraction was not far off the best espressos I get from cafes, with somewhat old, pre-ground beans. The crema valve delivers as advertised: it always produces crema.
After a couple months of use and lots of experimentation, I’ve worked out a few protocols that are yielding exemplary espressos. I’ve had the pleasure of pulling shots for family and friends at home and at the office, and everyone has been impressed by the results. I made a cortado for a friend who was over for dinner, and she referred to it as ‘the best cortado she’d ever had.’ I’m far from being a skilled barista.
The Nomad makes really good espresso without demanding ‘perfect’ inputs. It’s easy to pull ‘good’ shots with any coffee I’ve tried, and I’ve pulled many shots, with freshly-ground coffee that I consider excellent.
My favourite results have come from Bridgehead’s Sumatran dark roast. This roast is more oily than their Log Driver espresso roast, which is very dry.
Here are the protocols I’m using:
Espresso and dark roast beans work best, but you can pull crema-topped shots all the way down to ultra-light roasts if you wish. My preference is oily roasts, which some label as ‘dark’ or ‘espresso’, and the machine is not particularly sensitive to the time elapsed between roasting and grinding.
As with all brewing and extraction methods, a fresh grind will deliver you the most flavour; I notice this most with more oily beans. With the Nomad, a fresh grind will also deliver you the most crema. I purchased a Hario Prism ceramic burr grinder, and it has allowed me to easily dial in my grind with minimal experimentation required. I like my espresso toward the over-extracted end of the spectrum, so one click of the grinder dial away from ‘too fine’ (which only allows dripping, not streaming of coffee through the basket) is where I like it best, compacted ‘just right’; sorry, I can’t quantify this.
The coarser your grind, the less sensitive the extraction will be to compaction pressure. If I am going to make an espresso drink for someone who likes a less robust flavour, I’ll dial the grinder out two notches.
I always pre-heat my cup with boiled water, and pour boiled water into the machine at the last minute. Pre-heating the basket doesn’t seem to impact coffee temperature enough to discern.
I pump the system rapidly to bring it up to pressure, which overcomes the seal, allowing coffee to start to flow. I use short pumps to keep the gauge hovering around 9BAR, but allowing it to drop a bit, using longer pumps, doesn’t seem to make a difference.
60ml / 2oz of espresso will be produced at full strength, pre-blonding. This extraction takes about the same time you’d expect out of an electric machine, about 30 seconds. The True Crema Valve regulates output and back-pressure, and this makes extraction time very consistent, unlike typical espresso machines, which rely on coffee grind coarseness and compaction to regulate outflow rate. I can pull shots about 40 - 45 seconds long before I see blonding.
If you want HOT espresso, you can prepare the basket, pour hot water into the tank and cup, let it sit in the tank for 30-60 seconds, dump it out, replace it with fresh boiling water, perform the 12 strokes that pre-soak the coffee, dump out the cup, then continue on pumping to extract the shot. I picked up this tip form the UnitTerra site, and really like the result. I like my espresso really hot, and this works perfectly for me.
AND SO. . . .
I set out to determine whether there was a viable alternative to expensive, complicated, energy-consuming espresso machines for my ‘coffee lifestyle’; I drink straight-forward espresso daily. I wanted an affordable way of making espresso on par with the best local cafes serve. But I didn’t want to make a part time job out of the whole thing. And I wanted a machine I could fix myself in the event of issues down the road.
My Nomad experiment leaves no questions unanswered.
Is the machine a panacea, a ‘total solution’ for all coffee lovers?
Not a chance, nothing could be.
Can I make espresso at home as good as any cafe I’ve been to.
Yes, I can.
Can I make fantastic espresso with an affordable manual burr grinder, AND with pre-ground coffee.
Yes, I can.
Do I understand how the machine works, and will I be able to diagnose and fix any issues that could arise.
Yes, I do, and yes, I will.
Do I recommend the Nomad.
Yes, I do, heartily.
