Victoria Arduino and Espresso Mechanics have officially launched the Eagle One espresso machine in Australia, with an event at Au79 café in Melbourne on 11 February.
Former World Barista Champion James Hoffmann, a key figure in the development of the Eagle One, attended the event and discussed the idea behind the new machine.
With sustainability at the core of the Eagle One’s development, James told BeanScene that energy efficiency is not a topic the specialty coffee industry has focused on in the past.
“Manufacturers have been asked to do different things. We’ve demanded stability and performance from them, but we’ve never really said but do it as efficiently as you can. That was my big push in this project,” James said.
“It is a great machine, but it was also about finding materials that at the end of its life are more recyclable. The total carbon cost, the full lifecycle analysis, is significantly better than most other equipment, which matters to me and to the guys that built it. That hasn’t been a conversation among café owners, but we’re at a point now where consumption is increasingly conscious.”
The Eagle One features a New Engine Optimisation (NEO) water system, which operates in the extraction phase and only heats the required amount of water for espresso extraction. NEO reduces the energy usage and costs of the machine, aided by a thermally insulated boiler and steam boiler. A patented Temperature Energy Recovery System also recaptures the thermal energy of discharged and unused water, which preheats incoming water.
“Espresso machines are an enormous drain on resources for a café. People’s electricity bills are big, but they never think of it as anything but a fixed cost of business. But it doesn’t have to be. I want to change the way people assess their actions and be a little bit more mindful,” James said.
He added that Australia is among the most prolific consumers of espresso coffee.
“I saw at least a dozen espresso machines in one terminal of the airport yesterday. They are everywhere and they are having a massive impact. That terrifies me,” James said.
“It matters more to markets where there is higher penetration of espresso, but Melbourne cafés have also become a global thing. Everything from the design aesthetic to how food and coffee is prepared is exportable and copied in other countries, which means there is leadership here in cafés. For me, it’s really important for the leadership here to have a positive impact, because that then ripples around the world.”
Michele Mastrocola, Senior Sales Area Manager Asia-Pacific at Victoria Arduino, told BeanScene that Melbourne was the perfect starting point of this world tour. James and the Eagle One will next appear in New Zealand on 13 February, before heading to southeast Asia and Europe.
“Melbourne is the capital of coffee and a capital of the brand for us… There will be a lot of new things from Victoria Arduino. Australia is by far our ‘first market’, not in terms of volume but of pressure and where we want to build up the brand,” Michele said.
“We designed this machine to be sustainable to day one – there’s not one single component we have used before in any other machine. They are all built and designed to be more sustainable than before.”
The Victoria Arduino Eagle One will next be on display at the 2020 Melbourne International Coffee Expo.
For more information, visit www.espressomechanics.com.au