Four-time Irish Barista Champion and 3fe Managing Director Colin Harmon helped launch Victoria Arduino’s Mythos 2 grinder to Australian audiences on 23 October.
The Mythos 2 Gravimetric launch, host by Espresso Mechanics at Veneziano Richmond in Melbourne, saw Colin and Victoria Arduino representative Michele Mastrocola from Italy present the evolution of the new model and its significant differences from the Mythos One, first launched in 2013.
“When we launched Mythos One in Australia, everyone was very polite but a little dismissive,” Colin says.
“But people started to take a chance on a grinder that was a little different and Victoria Arduino and the grinder started to make names for themselves. When I came back to Australia in 2016, there was a Mythos One in every café.”
The Mythos 2 is largely developed based on feedback from customers across the world, including a more accurate dose, stable grind profile, greater viability, variable speed, volume, and scales.
“People don’t understand the effect speed has on quality,” Colin says. “They say ‘why don’t you make it grind faster?’ The simple answer is that the coffee burns at more than 1200 revs per minute. And grinding faster makes it less accurate.
“Users can [now] control the variables themselves to make the grind faster or more accurate if they want.”
The new variable speed motor, which is inherently linked to a bigger burr set, allows for consistency of speed from the very beginning.
“You could say the Mythos 2 is 19 per cent quicker than Mythos one, which equates to about two to three seconds faster in dose speed,” Colin says.
Volume and durability was another important consideration in the new Mythos 2. An inverter equipped motor stops the burrs locking, a larger burr set from 75 millimetres to 85 millimetres helps increase service speed and a higher hourly production, and a dual fan on the back of the grinder enables a faster cooling motor.
But what Colin says is his favourite feature is the inclusion of digital scales.
“To me, the most exciting thing to emerge in the past 10 years is ExtractMojo, a refractometer which allows us to measure the extraction on a coffee bar. This was a game changer that requires you to measure the weight of an espresso. We launched this in the Mythos 1 in Gravimetric but we realised the end point was having scales in the grinder, which hasn’t been achievable until this day – it’s been a 10-year project to get to this point,” Colin says.
“A lot of people say ‘why trust a grinder with scales? It doesn’t seem viable?’ But to me it feels very familiar because the action of using scales is such a common part of a barista’s workflow that we’ve now integrated into the machine.”
What’s more, the Mythos 2 includes an updatable software which is up to version 29. Colin says each update feels like receiving a brand-new grinder.
Additional features include a clump cluster to regulate the air flow from the burr set and a two-kilogram transparent hopper to see the volume of beans remaining.
“I really think this is it for grinders in this context,” Colin says. “I’m sure there will be incremental improvements but I’m struggling to think of something that will have a dramatic impact on how we grind coffee in this context. I feel it’s what we’ve been working towards for the past 10 years, and it’s something that feels very satisfying.
“I am terrified and excited to see the Mythos 2 put on coffee bars across Australia.”
Three versions of the Mythos 2 are available, including fixed speed, variable speed and Gravimetric models, available through Australian distributors Espresso Mechanics.
For more information, visit www.espressomechanics.com.au
