About Us

Hey, folks, I'm Ethan, founder of CafeSing. You might know me from ORCA or POTU. Yep, I'm a part-time designer, co-creating the flat burr and ghost burr hand grinder.

 

Let me introduce my recent design journey: in 2020, I started working on a slow-speed flat burr for hand grinders; in 2021, as a co-designer and launched POTU ghost burr hand grinder; in 2022, as a co-designer and launched POTU flat burr hand grinder; in 2023, launched ORCA under CafeSing – a flat burr ghost burr hand grinder.

 

My last job was IT consult. Yeah, a bit dull and constant globe-trotting biz trips. You know what relaxes me out in those random hotels? Grinding beans, V60 pour-over, and savoring the flavor. Not to be cool, it's just my leisure go-to, like how anglers and ski enthusiasts do.

 

When I travel or camp, I always have a conical burr hand grinder with me. It’s not tied down by electricity/size/weight; it can be easily put into a bag and used to handle any coffee beans. The traditional conical burr hand grinds less fine powder, and has a high fault tolerance rate for pour-over. It is suitable for making milk coffee because it produces high-strength espresso; but when processing light-roast beans, the flavor is not particularly clean, and the sense of hierarchy is slightly lacking.

 

My taste shifted to light roast, and flat burr captured clean and multi-layered flavors of light-roast beans better. So, the idea sparked to modify a hand grinder to get those tastes on the go.

 

The heart of a manual coffee grinder is a slow-speed burr. My initial idea was to modify a universal conical burr to solve all problems. This conical burr can handle beans of all coffee origins all processing methods all roast degrees, and got the B+ point.

 

But, I flopped. Luckily, I found I could change the structure of the standard flat burr for a slow-speed hand grind. My priority is to express flavors of light roast cleanly, so it's better to build a particular burr to solve this problem first. So I started the design of a slow-speed flat burr for a manual coffee grinder.

 

In short, designing ORCA was a wonderful journey. I found high-speed electric-grinder flat burrs and low-speed hand-grinder flat burrs are two different species; I calibrated my goals, 1 burr solves 1 unique problem, and creates a slow-speed ghost burr to handle dark-roast beans; I found that, big burr get better powder, small burr hand grinder won't match an EK43 + SSP98mmUltra, but in certain aspects, if big commercial electric grinders are A+, top-notch hand grinders can hit close to a B+.

 

CafeSing means ‘Café thing’. I mean, I don't want the exact same equipment as Café, no need for home-level tools, I want personal coffee gear with Café level, more like my smartphone, with specific apps to solve my specific problems. My goal? I can make coffee anywhere with my gear, and savor that natural taste in a more personal way.

 

Apologies if I’m not a pro at talking to folks, but I promise to read all your emails. Cheers!