La Marzocco has unveiled a portafilter and firmware attachment for Modbar machines, enabling them to steep tea.
Revealed at Host Milano, the Modbar Tea pairs a pressurised portafilter with custom Modbar AV firmware to enable a programmable steeping process on any compatible Modbar AV Espresso Tap, with the ability to set initial fill volume, dwell time, and total beverage weight over two pulses.
Las Marzocco says the technology will enable tea to be extracted in half the time as traditional steeping methods.
The Modbar is La Marzocco’s under-counter alternative to traditional coffee machines, and was produced with the aim of helping improve the use of bench space in cafés.
In addition to being revealed at Host Milano, the new technology will also be presented at La Marzocco’s Out of the Box event on Saturday 18 October in collaboration with The 1872 Clipper Tea Co and Wilden Herbals.
The portafilter and firmware will be available as a package for new Modbar purchases, but is also retrofittable to existing installations.
The Modbar Pour-Over was also revealed at Out of the Box. Featuring the same add-a-tap design used in the Modbar Espresso AV, the Pour-Over system is able to add a second tap or hot water faucet to increase capacity.
Unlike the Modbar Tea, the Pour-Over system is not an add-on to the existing Espresso AV, but rather a new under-counter solution.
It is the first Modbar system to feature connectability to the La Marzocco app, which can be used to manage recipes, configure settings, and view statistics.
