Cafesing Orca - The Super Weird Tale of the FLAT BURR Hand Grinder - A Review

[@wenderis]

Great dive into the topic! For me a consumer in asia, I've been eyeing on Portu for some months now and this review of Cafesing truly helps. But this is actually THE common practice in the industry in asia. Dropshippers, ODM, white labeling... I mean, there are bigger fish to fry in the specialty coffee industry, like the coffee itself. I hope one day there are more voices in coffee youtube that speaks about super weird ethics in the coffee chains.

[@geraldl5221]

5:15 I just purchased a Pietro and it's in shipping, super happy to hear you say that about it! Your Pietro review was a large part of the reason I decided to pull the trigger on it. Loving your content thus far!

[@zachhenning3614]

This was a fantastic review. I am glad you took the time to dive into the Chinese manufacturing part of it all. Over here in Korea we see this stuff all the time. Turin doesnt exist over here. Its called ITOP. But its the same thing. Well done!

[@DaddyGotCoffee]

Thank you! I think the difference with the DF style grinders (regardless of name) is they are made cheaply and those savings are passed on to consumers, really lowering the barrier of entry for electric 64mm grinders. The Orca is different. It sells at a premium price point, costing similar to 1ZPressos top line grinders. There are no savings being passed on to consumers and in my opinion, it is under delivering in the cup and finishes compared to similarly priced grinders - as consumers we need to ask why. With the Df, it’s a decent grinder and a little rough around the edges but nobody cares because they’re so cheap.

[@zachhenning3614]

What a great point. Yea that price of the Orca was pretty high when you consider other offerings from 1Zpresso. I love me a Df Grinder. I have the ITOP 40 (sk40 over here) and I love it! Be blessed!@@DaddyGotCoffee

[@ScepticMatt]

The OEM for Turin etc is Ningbo Frigga Electric Appliances

[@atzedevries9563]

10 points for the propper research! Very interesting.

[@DaddyGotCoffee]

Thank you!

[@braxtonjens7839]

Nice review. I appreciate your take on the Wild West of Chinese manufacturing. If I am able to make a comment since I have some experience with ghost burrs, they just brew different. Lower temps, lower ratios and up to 2 minute blooms can make these things sing. They don’t brew the same as flats or conical. Try a 2 minute bloom and a 1:15 ratio with 90C brew temp. See if that’s better for your flavor preferences.

[@DaddyGotCoffee]

I will absolutely give this a go - thank you! And yes, I AB’d with the conicals using the same recipe.

[@beefvalve]

what a great review. wait, sorry. it's more than a review. it actually gets into journalism territory. anyway, loved watching this. had to subscribe. now excuse me, gotta binge watch your videos

[@NativeNewYorker66]

Great review as always and thank you for putting up multiple 🚩🚩🚩🚩! This did seem like an interesting and good option for a hand held flat burr grinder. The Cafe Sing Orca is now on sale for $189 w/$5 off for new customers. HOWEVER, I would not consider this grinder due to the "weird" shady stuff that is going on in Factoryland! This reminds me of Varia Brewing. When I was thinking of purchasing their then upcoming AKU Scale, they were selling an LED Scale which they mentioned that was their design and was selling for approx. $59USD. However, I had the same exact scale with the name KitchenTour that I purchased on Amazon for less than $20. When I asked Varia Brewing about it, they stopped replying to my emails! Needless to say, the 🚩🚩🚩🚩 flew up and I stopped considering buying anything from Varia.

[@ccahua]

Daddy Got Consumer Protection 👍✊Thank you!

[@ianguile7214]

Check out Sprometheus' pinned comment on his video for a statement from cafesing. It's clear cafesing paid potu (seemingly the original manufacturer) to white label the grinder on the grounds that potu stops selling the unit. I do have the "new" model shown at 11:18, which on sale I got for $98 USD, and I can say I'm quite happy with it's performance for that price 😊

[@DaddyGotCoffee]

I did. What’s strange is I straight up asked Cafesing if they wanted to me to leave the same statement as a comment on my video and they said they would prefer not to comment, making me wonder if that was in fact the real deal. I’d be a lot happier with the deal you got!

[@arghmon]

Good research

[@DaddyGotCoffee]

Thank you!

[@xerxes8717]

I was actually considering this grinder, I went for the J Ultra instead. What do you think is contributing to the “flatness” of the flavor? And by flatness do you mean lack of acidity or sweetness?

[@DaddyGotCoffee]

I am not positive what causes this but I think it may be the fines created by the ghost burr in particular. And yes, a little less dimension than I was hoping for, not as lively, missing some acidity and seeetness, a touch hollow - but as I said, very forgiving to brew with.

[@GimmeMoreMilk]

​@@DaddyGotCoffee have you experimented with longer bloom times (e.g. 2 minute blooms) and wet WDT? I've heard that they can help with the flatness of ghost burrs - supposedly due to the fact the grind size is coarser.

[@needmorebeans]

The Cafesing products are more like an ODM product manufactured by their OEM Hero (kind of like another Timemore). Since Hero can't hit all markets themselves (primarily Asia only), they'd rather manage the B2B relationships and let other brands rename their products. Similar to the DF64/83 grinders and Gemilai/Corrima espresso machines. Creating a brand and selling rebranded OEM products (similar to dropshipping on a much larger scale) is a huge business in China.

[@needmorebeans]

If anyone wants to know more about the wild world of Chinese coffee products, check out Wayne Shih. His videos are in Chinese but hopefully you can figure out a way to translate/sub them with something. www.youtube.com/@WayneShih

[@chahahc]

It seems to me that the performance of this grinder would be quite dependent on the angle at which it's held when grinding. Being a hand grinder, it is incapable of spinning fast enough to creating enough centrifugal force to actively feed the grinds through the burrs. This seems especially true for the ghost burrs since they don't have the cutting surface angles of the espresso burrs that would provide at least some marginal active feeding. So holding the grinder straight up so that the burrs are parallel to the floor would cause the grinds to just kind of sit in the burrs and continually regrind until they're eventually pushed out by more grinds coming from the prebreaker. Whereas holding the grinder at an angle would help facilitate the grinds falling smoothly through the burrs by the force of gravity. I do wonder if this is the reason for so much inconsistency between the various reviews of this grinder, and in your particular case the retention and slowed down grind speed at the end of the grinding process.

[@DaddyGotCoffee]

I did try it both ways and you are correct. Holding vertically does impact both speed and and retention. However, I didn’t find holding the grinder at an angle with the ghost burrs didn’t drastically improve the cup quality on filter. Even when held at an angle, I still found getting the last bit through on the ghost burrs a little more tedious than I would like. Great notes and questions

[@T100ley]

Welp I’ve got one, oh well… still enjoyable to use I’ll say.

[@mtpastor4546]

Ghost burrs are good at syphon.

[@Stevesbe]

Nice way of saying it suck