FLAIR 58 DETHRONED?: Superkop and Sonic S7 Review 

BetterHelp is a major scammy/Scummy company. I would advise reading up on them and turning down their sponsorships.

just think... you could emulate that "up and down" pressure profile from the Superkop on your Decent and potentially expose another earth shattering espresso shot pulling technique that goes against all traditional theories

I hit that like 👍

Great Video Lance! My only gripe is that you should cut ties with BH because of what they've done recently

Ok that would be epic actually

Brilliant.

Strietman had a wall mounted lever at one time.

Not heated, which may not always be needed but it's a different workflow regardless for those times you do need it

I swapped off my Flair58 to the Robot. Absolutely GOATed and thundies or the basket plug make preheating the piston a lot easier

​@@Cenot4phits still fast, preheating or not

There's a ton of solutions to preheat the piston, I ditched my flair and never looked back. Light roast or dark, it's the simplest, cleanest workflow for excellent espresso.

The robot all the way, look forward to my brew every day

Sorry to spoil the mood but even though it's good to talk about mental health, BetterHelp is not the way to go. It's a terrible company that has made shady business and ethical decisions in a space where that should absolutely not be acceptable. If you need therapy, please go seek a therapist that works for you without using a company like BetterHelp

It seems like my comment got deleted but to summarize [the sponsor] is a really terrible company that engages in shady practices

​@@quarkonium3795 and how r u qualified to say that? Did the bad man hurt u?

⁠@@blingbling2001I don't claim any qualifications, but it's now public knowledge that they illegally shared sensitive customer health data with advertisers and are now the target of a huge class-action lawsuit. There's also been a lot of criticism from people in the industry of their practices with regards to Therapy and accusations of insensitivity when it comes to major tragedies like the Travis Scott concert. I'm not against getting Therapy at all, quite the opposite. I have a great therapist right now. All I'm saying is that if you need therapy you should try to seek out a licensed therapist that takes your insurance through other means

@@blingbling2001Also, I don't have anything against Lance as a creator. I am subscribed and I love his videos, I just question his choice of sponsor for this video specifically

I have a kettle that opens wide enough for me to drop the whole thing inside and boil with my brew water, and I cut a notch at the end of an old wooden spoon handle to hook out the chamber when it’s piping hot. Once I had the practice down I’m pulling shots with great temp stability and ease. I’ve been deciding whether to upgrade to the Flair 58+ but I’m happy enough with my setup that I’ll wait for their gen 2 update.

As a Flair Signature user. I just cant

Even with light roasts you don't need to preheat. Just grind a lot finer and you get the same outcome: delicious shots.

The flair does the exact same thing. Just don’t preheat it lol.

The robot has easier workflow

@@spyk124 the robot has less thermal loss than flair- anyone could forgo preheating but with robot you don’t need to lol and it’s a smaller profile than flair

Hideous branding. Literally no matter how good a product they make (and it feels like mostly mid/stolen ideas) I don’t need fucking war machines on my bean juicers

@@willmitchell8500 😅 exactly, I wanted to get their blind shaker but I’m not going to be staring at this logo every day when I make coffee in the morning.

@@DigitalicaEGhad this exact thought this morning while looking at their stuff

The heating element on the flair saves so much time and effort. Plus, the standard 58mm portafilter means you can use all kinds of accessories with it. I love it.

@@VishnuRajam4x4I agree. It depends on a person’s needs but I use the flair58 twice a day and the heating element makes all the difference for me (with the plunger pulled up to heat the piston too): turn it on when I wake up for a first shot just before starting work and then I can easily walk over even during a meeting to turn it on to heat up again (to pull a second shot during my break or even on a non video call).

The idea behind the robot is that you don't really have to preheat. I have one and I find the espresso it produces without preheating amazing. Maybe not just as good as the potential a flair58 has but I love that the robot has no electronics or cables. I think the two machnies are close competitors, some up and downsides on both and it really comes down to personal taste.@@VishnuRajam4x4

It depends if you want an easy fun ride of a machine that is ready to use but that is somewhat less versatile, that doesn’t allow to change all sort of components the robot is definitely the pick, do you like to explore, learn, experiment, drink light roast experimental processed coffee, are an enthusiast and don’t mind a steeper learning curve and offer loads of accessories the f58 is for you, I really don’t think the two speak to the same crowds. While the f58 for sure can make any sort of shot (within its volume restriction) due to its nature I’ll probably go robot if I was just going to pull a medium roasted comfort shot.

@@mikni4069 Saying the Robot can't pull light roasts is a bit absurd.

Overall we dont think the Superkop takes that much space on a counter top, but if it is too big you can always wallmount the mechanism and the wallset

@@Superkop_espresso Yeah, I'm probably an outlier, but in a galley-style kitchen, it just doesn't work for me without designing around it (if I want anything taller than my Europiccola I need to remove cabinets. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the machine, just not for me right now. Wall mounting is super cool, but I don't trust my 5 and 6 year old :) Cheers

Buy a new house :-) @@RichardStroffolino

Wondering why you think the robot can't pull good shots from a light roast..?

@@bali404 because of the thermal stability. the robot that is on stock setup is not hot enough to pull a good shot of light roast. Users who pull light roast on a robot do some pre heating stuff to have the piston on high temp.

The installation is very simple, the wall needs to be reasonably sturdy but overall the lever force is minimal on the wall.

What your describing is the reason for the Superkop. We wanted to develop something that does not require a lot of service, has only a few parts that can be replace by yourself and makes great espresso.

Oh my! I would love it! Can you shoot me an email at Lance@lancehedrick.coffee?

If I had the budget for either a Superkop or Bomber, I'd certainly get a La Pavoni instead.

I have an Argos on pre-order, hopefully it will arrive before the heat death of the universe. It isn't really comparable to these as it's heated and has a boiler, but it'd be great to see a comparison with the Cremina and a modded La Pavoni.

That doesn't make it not safe either. That said, humanity can benefit by plastic induced infertility😂

@@veganpotterthevegan ​"humanity can benefit by plastic induced infertility" You might have a point but.... countries where the population is growing at the moment aren't the best educated, those are not the countries where you expect (much) coffee devices like this. Let's not go off topic any further, I stick to metal and glass 😜

@@yspegelAgreed, metal and glass only. Especially leaded glass and cadmium. Oh, wait, I guess additives make a big difference even with metal and glass :)

​@@veganpotterthevegan there's a fast and simple way you can help fight the population crisis, my friend.

@@yspegel it's just a happy side effect of the topic😎

I guess hugo cut out the part about me discussing the forge. It is nice but wow is it tall. I've done a whole video on the forge.

@@LanceHedrick I missed that video i'll check it out, I'm sure though comparisons are always nice. To me commerical levers have a greater height to the spring lever, and that's often seen as a mechanical advantage. Many bars even put their machines up higher than normal counter height to give smaller baristas more weight advantage. Try letting body weight sink into the shot rather than pulling with your biceps! Just my 2c

PRESSENSOR

Hi, it can stand the heat but not really the soap being used. The watercup starts to become very stained with the soaps used. We recommend to just flush the watercup with hot water and dry with a towel. If needed the watercup bottom can be dissembled and cleaned by the user

It’s a myth that light roast always mandates high temps. 1:2 ratio 15s turbos @ 86C is how a lot of people get the very best results with high extracting burrs like 98mm HU.

@@RegrinderAlert whatever tastes good! I'm a preheat at 3, kettle at 99ºC person but to each it's own.

@@danymeeuwissen5973 Fully agree 👍 Just wanted to point out that for certain recipe-water-burrset combinations, some parameters will be ideal outside the expected range.

A Superkop can make a nasty cold brewed espresso

We are always listening to the market and consumers and overtime we might be able to add some of the suggested improvements

Manometer is just the greek word for pressure gauge. They're the same thing.

Most certainly on the thin side. But thin is better than none ha! And the temp dip isn't awful. I've shown loads of scace readings in a previous video

Agree. I did not say it was bad, just could be improved. Imagine how someone anal with their Decent would react.@@LanceHedrick

My decision came down to similar options (i.e. 9Barista vs Flair58/Robot/similar), and I ended up grabbing the 9Barista. I have been very happy with it, making very consistent espresso daily. I do wonder about lever machines still, though, as there's not much to "play" with on the 9Barista. I love the espresso, and workflow is quite smooth and fast at this point -- about 10-15 minutes total to make espresso, steam milk, make breakfast and enjoy! The only variations I make are to grind when changing beans, so no temp changes, no pressure to fiddle with, etc. As long as I have the grind size right, I get a very good shot every time. But I wonder about all the fun these lever boys are having =) So there are my own quick thoughts, but I've ultimately got similar questions! What makes lever machines great? Am I missing out on something more? I was originally looking mainly at Flair, Robot, Aram, Kazak, 9Barista.

@@hubbax69 thank you for sharing your experience. I might take the same path...

It wouldn't get hot enough. It doesn't hold heat well. It's essentially plastic. Won't do much more than just hot water

I replaced the pressure gauge with a Bluetooth one.

@@LanceHedrick thank you ! That was too easy 😅