Originally Posted by holyren

When I first began learning about coffee, I too went for the Clover at Sbx. It was better tasting than their other drip.

How do I see it now? Worthless and absurd.

You can brew higher quality coffee at home using a pour over or aeropress. The Clover still has the weakness of relying on a poorly trained sbx employee to calibrate the grinder. I seriously doubt they are back there calculating TDS and Extraction % with a refractometer.

So a Clover is really no different than putting pond water into a luxury car. The problem is the input, and the price of the machine. Most high end shops in the U.S. (the best ones) do not even bother with Clovers, and would most likely laugh at the idea of buying a Starbucks owned machine that costs $12k.

You'll notice most shops use Hario cones, Aeropresses, Chemexes, etc. Not a big refrigerator sized mammoth that does the same thing! Plus, there's something called a Gold Cup Brewer...

I went back and had a Clover brewed Kenya (I usually love them) and it was the worst I had had in two years. It was stale (old) and roasted way too dark for a Kenya.

Point is, if you think a Clover at Sbx is the peak of coffee you have a whole world of awesomeness awaiting you.