Barista Attitude’s new Pilot is pushing boundaries with a single boiler machine that maintains temperature stability and captures different flavour profiles thanks to pre-infusion.
Italian espresso machine manufacturer Barista Attitude was kept busy at the World Barista Championship in Athens as baristas used its Tempesta Gara machine on the competition stage to bring the best out of their chosen coffees. But it was on the show floor at the coinciding World of Coffee expo that exhibitors got to play with the brand’s new toy: the Pilot.
“Some people may question why we added a single boiler machine to the Barista Attitude range, and there are two main reasons,” says Jacopo Bambini, Barista Attitude Group Marketing Director. “First, is because we wanted to complete our product range and offering to the specialty coffee community. And second, is because customers were asking for it – a single boiler machine that is easy to use for baristas beginning their coffee journey, and coffee chains where volume and repetition is key.”
Despite being a single boiler machine, users can create different coffee profiles thanks to pre-infusion. Baristas can easily set the time water comes in contact with the coffee cake, and the duration water is in contact with the coffee cake before extraction with standard pressure.
“The fact that you can set two different timings for a pre-infusion on each group gives the barista the chance to really capture the flavour and taste they are looking for,” Jacopo says. “You can achieve a completely different result for the same coffee blend.”
Brand Ambassador Michalis Dimitrakopoulos describes Barista Attitude as “a family” that works together. It’s for this reason he’s believed in its product range, and the new Pilot machine, from the beginning.
“I 100 per cent believe in the Pilot. I truly think it’s a machine that can be very good for businesses, and one of the best machines in the coffee industry,” Michalis says.
He says the company has done a lot of research and development into what baristas want in today’s current market climate. The biggest response from high-performance venues, is machines that deliver consistency, day in, day out.
“In my opinion, baristas in coffee shops aren’t using different temperatures on each of the boilers. Usually, they work with the same temperature on their group heads. That’s why we focused on creating a machine with the same temperature in the group heads but with temperature stability. For us, stability in brewing is the most important thing. A machine without it is disastrous because you have no control over what you’re serving,” Michalis says.
The Pilot includes all the best features and technology Barista Attitude can offer. This includes five-inch display touchscreens on each group to easily navigate the menu or customise settings for brewing time, dosage, pressure, or pre-infusion.
“You don’t have to be a technician to log in and change things. This is very important. The Pilot, Storm, and Tempesta are both really easy machines to work on,” Michalis says.
There is also an option to connect the Pilot to Wi-Fi and utilise Barista Attitude’s cloud-based telemetry platform (Beans2Cloud platform) to access information such as coffee counters, errors, faults, and service reminders.
Jacopo notes the other impressive feature is the Pilot steam wand with cool touch and dry steam.
“It’s long and easy to manoeuvre. What’s unique about the Pilot’s steam wand compared to the Storm and Tempesta is that it’s located on the front panel of the machine, and not the side, making it more a compact machine. It gives the barista more space to move around and can help improve the workflow of a coffee shop,” Jacopo says.
The Auto-steamer is an optional additional to steam milk automatically for businesses wanting to advance new baristas while guaranteeing cup quality.
The Pilot’s design is in line with the Barista Attitude range of machines and has considered the needs of technicians with easy access to its internal organs.
The Pilot has been used in field tests in the European specialty coffee market for the past seven months. Jacopo says World of Coffee in Athens was the official launch and Host Milano will be release of the machine for the remainder of the international market.
“Our job is to give our customers complete answers and solutions to their different needs. We are always talking and thinking about the barista community and how we can provide additional tools to make their lives easier, and achieve better cup quality. This is always our aim,” he says.
For more information, visit www.barista-attitude.com or contact Australian distributor CWE cwe.com.au
This article appears in the August 2023 edition of BeanScene. Subscribe HERE.
