Memorial Day 2013 – Retail Store Sale!
Happy Memorial Day 2013!
In the Seattle area? Join us at our Lynnwood retail store and we’ll take 10% off all in-store purchases. Plus, we’re giving away a free bag of Lavazza Qualita Rossa pre-ground coffee with the purchase of selected camping-oriented gear.
The Great Saeco Semi-Automatic Battle: Aroma vs. Venezia vs. Poemia
In search of a small single boiler espresso machine? Check out how these three models from Saeco stack up.
| Machine |
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| Casing | Cased in a steel casing, this compact machine won’t take up too much space with it’s boxy figure. | Internally you can call this bad boy and the Aroma twins, but externally it’s a little more of an upgrade. Cased in the same steel material, the Venezia’s curves do more of the talking. |
Like triplets on the inside, it’s the Poemia that physically stands out from the rest of them by far. Modeled after the Saeco Xelsis and Exprelia, it has a compact metal and plastic casing. |
| Footprint | 8.25″ W x 9.75″ D x 11.75″ H | 9.63″ W x 11.5″ D x 13″ H |
7″ W x 9.5″ D x 11.5″ H |
| Steam Wand | Making life a little easier with the panarello wand, you’ll be able to get foamy milk in no time. However, this wand will only move left to right making it a little more difficult to fit bigger frothing pitchers underneath. | With the ease to foam your milk into velvety goodness, this panarello wand gives you a little more clearance with your frothing pitcher. Its ability to swivel also makes for easier clean-up. |
Taking a cue from its superautomatic cousins, the Poemia’s panarello wand has their design and will allow you to easily create milk with microfoam. However, like the Aroma, its right to left motion makes fitting larger frothing pitchers underneath more difficult. |
| Drip Tray | This may be a little messier than most. But with a more compact machine comes smaller parts. You’ll find yourself having to lift the tray out of the casing to empty out a lot more often than not. |
With more room and accessibility to slide the drip tray out when it’s time to empty, the Venezia gives you less of a mess. It also sports an accessory drawer underneath that is removable to provide more room for larger cups. |
Ridged (baffled) that will prevent messes and sloshing, you’ll find it easier to empty out your drip tray when it’s time, no matter how full it is. |
| Water Reservoir | 80 oz. |
98 oz. | 34 oz. |
| Portafilter | Equipped with a pressurized stainless steel with plastic cased portafilter, it will help you pull ideal shots no matter what grind you use. However, the quality of this portafilter is more basic than the sleek portafilter that comes with the Black Via Venezia. | The Black Via Venezia comes with a sleek upgraded look to the heavy metal portafilter, however you’ll find the stainless steel version to have the same basic portafilter as the Aromas. |
Functions as well as both the Aroma and Venezia portafilters, you’ll find that the quality of the Poemia is not as sturdy. Made of aluminum wrapped in a plastic case, it will still do the job. |
| Pods/Grounds | Both | Both | Both |
New! SCG T-Shirts!
Our first round of official SCG gear is our phrenology-inspired t-shirt, which we’ve entitled Caffeinology! We asked Gail and Allison to model them for you.
Share your love for java, SCG or both by picking one up for your wardrobe.
Happy New Year!
As a new year dawns, we wanted to take a moment to thank you for your business!
After nearly 7 years in this game, we are still having fun playing with coffee and trying to do the best work that we can to meet your needs. We hope that our commitment to knowledge and consistent improvements in our service will continue to resonate with you this year and beyond.
Thanks so much for supporting us so that we can do work that we love! We wish you an amazing New Year (and firmly hope the Mayans didn’t know what the heck they were talking about all those millenia ago)!
Choose Your Own Adventure: Selecting an Espresso Machine
There are hundreds of espresso machines on the market, who knows where to even start?! We often receive feedback from folks researching gear that it’s overwhelming to determine which machine would best fit their needs, why they’d choose one type of machine over the other or how their budget might impact functionality or features.
To assist in this, we’ve developed our first interactive series of videos that provide an introductory look at the different points to consider when selecting an espresso machine. As you navigate through this, Gail offers her recommendations for machines worth researching in different machine types and budget classes.
Enjoy!
Looking for more detail on the recommended equipment? Checkout the Selecting an Espresso Machine section of our site.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Here in the US, it’s about to get real around dinner tables from coast to coast — a cornucopia of harvest victuals surrounding a lovingly roasted turkey. Personally, we take this opportunity every year to exact a little bit of cosmic revenge on the crew of wild turkeys that fervently chased us through the jungles of Costa Rica 15 years ago; some might say we hold a grudge, we believe we’re simply trying to exorcise our demons.
If you’re celebrating like we are today (with or without sweet revenge), we hope you have a fabulous holiday and take time to revel in all you have to be thankful for!
SCG Named on Inc.’s List of Fastest Growing Companies!
We love what we do and it often doesn’t seem like work, but it’s still pretty awesome to be recognized for our creativity and commitment to building an honest, sustainable business. This year, we were named on Inc.’s annual list of fastest growing private companies — we ranked #960 out of 5000! Given that there are roughly 7 million private, employer-based companies in the US, we are definitely humbled by this honor.
But we could not have done this without all of our amazing customers who have chosen to do business with us, so we thank you! It has been amazing to grow a company during such a rocky economic time and we really appreciate your support in all that we do.
Introducing the Crossland Coffee CC1
Always on the lookout for new gear, we were excited by the prospect of a new entry-level machine being shepherded through development and into production by Bill Crossland, who previously designed the La Marzocco GS/3. Over the past year, we were lucky enough to play with different iterations of this machine, give general feedback on the basic functionality and beta test a final production model in our store for the past couple of months.
You know that we believe there’s a market for every machine, and while those operating in the upper echelons of espresso machine nirvana might find the CC1 a bit utilitarian, we love the fact that it effectively addresses some of the long term issues of machines in the under $1k class — namely, easily maintained temperature stability.
Watch as Bill gives a functional, spec-based overview of the new CC1, which is now available for pre-order.
Seattle Coffee Gear’s Refurbishment Center
Lately, we’ve been posting a slew of crew reviews (!), covering all the new refurbished machines we have available. We are a certified refurbishment center, specializing in Saeco machines, eventually taking on more models down the line. Gail checked in with the lead of the refurb team, Patrick, to talk with him about how the magic happens.
Happy New Year!
2011 is the year of the rabbit (yes, we know it doesn’t actually kick in on that shizz until February) and that means it’s going to be lucky, fluffy and cute! Of course.
With so many changes and such awesome growth over the past year, we want to thank all of you who have contributed to it by choosing to do business with us. We’ve been able to help so many people make better coffee at home, it almost brings a tear to our eye — and will later, after we’ve had a couple glasses o’ bubbly.
We hope you have a wonderful holiday weekend and that the new year brings you all sweetness, all light. See you right back here in 2011.