The blog for espresso professionals. Our commitment is to everything espresso along with the environment, sustainability and social consciousness.
I read Gizmodo every day and just saw this pop up on my RSS… needless to say I was more than a little shocked.
Check out the story of Slayer in New York at RBC here at Gizmodo: A Little $18,000 Espresso Machine Called Slayer
Posted under Culture, Marketing/Branding, Pictures
Here are a few shots of Slayer’s new studio that I thought you might find interesting. Slayer has officially moved to its new digs in Seattle’s Georgetown neighborhood.
Energy levels are high, as we build out the space, receive production components, meet with customers & vendors and argue with the landlord.
An expanded loading dock is also being added at our request that apparently must conform to the building code/design intent of this historically registered building, circa 1905. So it seems this will be a huge wooden “stable door”, and will take several more weeks to finish and install. Can hardly wait.
Right now, work is being completed in days that would ordinarily take weeks. Plumbing, drainage, work stations, desks, lighting, and handling systems. We are also adding a pseudo lab/cafe where we will keep Slayers running at all times for customer use and testing.
The area for this was not plumbed or powered when we moved in, so Ron our resident electrician and power panel assembler is working to get these things in place, channeling through brick, finding long lost power connections, often in the catacomb-like areas that lie below the main floor of this 104 year old building.
Twenty-two foot high ceilings, mean it will be easy to store components on lofty racks. While a bank of regularly spaced fifteen foot windows give this work environment the feel of a cathedral consecrated to espresso, hailing from gothic times.
It is perhaps this cavernous quality and the way the building pulls in light from outside and casts shadows against rough-hewn columns, like ancient trees, that lend these snapshots an odd feeling of languor and quietude.
Eric Perkunder in Seattle
Posted under Equipment, Pictures
Day 2 at the SCAA was a busy one for Slayer. (Click here to see what the official WBC blogger has to say about this.) Prior to the show we invited roasters to bring their own coffee to Atlanta to test out the new machine. More roasters took us up on this offer than we thought actually would. This was great. We were also overwhelmed with the response from the barista community which took to the new machine with ease. Some people played for hours with the enhanced functionality of Slayer, experimenting and testing new ideas.
Posted under Pictures, Shows & Jams
As I write this post, I am in a happy state of extreme caffenation!
Slayer’s debut and hearty reception at SCAA has taken us completely by surprise. And I must say happily so.
Day one revealed what our Slayer team has suspected for a while. Our industry has been waiting and watching quite carefully for the unleashing of new pressure control functionality for practical use in real life cafe situations. Waiting for functionality like this in a machine configured for artisanal brewing in a barista-style machine.
Posted under Pictures, Shows & Jams
I’m posting this picture of Dan Urwiler posing behind the proto-Slayer: Slayer’s prototype. The fit and finish of this pre-production machine is far less refined than the production version. The proto-Slayer was almost 100% handmade, and went through numerous iterations before reaching the version shown here. Like most prototypes, proto-Slayer reflects many tweaks and changes made along the way.
Posted under Culture, Equipment, Experiments & Tests, Marketing/Branding, Pictures, Shows & Jams
Ever notice how projects that you’ve been working on for a long time can seem to reach their conclusion in a burst? All the elements that go into realizing that vision of the perfect espresso machine come together at last, and you are there . . .
Posted under Coffee Retailing, Culture, Equipment, Marketing/Branding, Pictures, Shows & Jams
Slayer deploys a magazine of multiple tanks in a cylindrical cluster, similar to the barrel configuration of a Gatling gun.
Slayer’s tanks are mounted to ribs which are attached to a central spar. This happens to be the way the wings of almost all fixed-wing aircraft are made.
However, our inspiration was not Boeing, though aircraft design and construction did play into our thoughts. Nor was it guns.
Nor was our inspiration the human anatomy, where a highly specialized skeleton is enclosed by the body, while the body provides higher level functionality and sensory support, but not raw structural strength (for this kind of thing see, insects and arthropods).
However, analogies from nature that dovetailed with our thinking were validating.
Posted under Equipment, Pictures, VideoX versus the NSF leg– Cleanliness need not be sacrificed for Beauty and Functionality
Slayer’s vertical-plane X form factor provides loads of extra space low down where conditions are cooler and drier, and ideal for electronics and sensitive components. This means Slayer does not need additional height to gain this precious real estate, allowing a lower, sleeker profile and the logical layout of components. With lower height comes other benefits. The barista can make eye contact with the customer while working behind the low-slung machine. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted under Equipment, Pictures, Video
Okay, I’m going to say it. . . “Slayer combines Art and Technology to create a beautiful, highly functional design.”
The reason I hesitate to state this bluntly is because it seems like this is an over-used marketing catch phrase–a hackneyed bromide, a gimmick. It seems that every company out there lays claim to bringing these two characteristics together in a single enigmatic product. However, most don’t.
If nothing else, the Slayer espresso machine truly is the result of a conscious effort to reassert the importance of the espresso machine as the iconic centerpiece, the focal point and object, of the Third Wave cafe, while at the same time introducing new brewing capabilities, particularly around the concept of leveraging brew pressure deltas, to get more out of the coffee.
Jason, Dan and I really did start out with the intention of creating a Slayer espresso machine that married Art and Technology to achieve a level of look and functionality that is simply not available in the market at this point. The design brief for Slayer called for a product, custom tailored for the boutique coffee category in form and function. To do this we had to push it.
Posted under Culture, Equipment, Marketing/Branding, Pictures, Pressure Profiling
Well – after someone leaked some cell phone pictures of the machine onto the inter-tubes this past weekend, we figured the cat was out of the bag…and we should let everyone know (officially) that the machine actually exists in the wild.
These pictures are of the pre-production machine we hand built in Seattle early December – and is now being tested in Calgary at Fratello (much to everyone’s delight there). If you’re in Calgary – please give us a shout and we’ll schedule a private test drive ;-)
We’ll be updating the blog more often now with details on what the machine actually does & how it does it.
Let us know your thoughts & enjoy the pix.
Jason
(click the thumbs for a larger view)
Posted under Equipment, Pictures