Out of the box the espresso was reasonable. When I started using the app, the brew became even better. The preinfusion softened the coffee and made a pleasant shot. I didn’t realize I needed to pay attention to the water quantity I put in & my first few shots were soup shots. Still pleasant, but a little more liquid than expected. After getting to know it, things began to come together. Still light on the crema, but I’ll need to work with more coffees to see if the crema dearth is consistent with this machine.
The build quality is excellent—consistent with IKAPE's usual standards—and I really love it!
This is a novel product; no other brand has made anything like it. It is highly innovative, very practical, and incredibly easy to use.
It is particularly well-suited for dark and medium-dark roast beans; you only need to use the Unipress distributor-tamper, without requiring a separate coffee tamper. Of course, if you are brewing medium-roast beans, you would likely still need to use a standard coffee tamper.
I tried pairing it with a convex-bottom basket, and that worked even better.
Overall, it is a fantastic product, especially for use in coffee shops.
IKAPE's capacity for innovation is outstanding.
I saw someone post about this basket on a CoffeeJack 2.0 posting. Until ten, I was having lackluster results with my CJ2. This basket was a game changer. I can now pull consistently nice shots with the CJ2 with a wider range of grind.
The one thing that is tricky is getting a good tamp due to the taper. Anyone with a CJ2 knows you need a good tamp to insert the inverted basket.
IKAPE Portable Coffee Maker with 58mm Bottomless Basket- KAPO K2 Pro
