Six reasons a Flair is right for you

Say you’re on the fence about buying an espresso maker for the home. We get it. There are lots of options out there, and besides, you’ve heard so many different opinions from so many people. So how do you make sense of it all?

At Flair Espresso, we’ve been selling affordable, cafe-quality espresso makers for the past three years, so we know a thing or two. Here are the five main reasons a Flair is right for you.

#1 – Cheaper than your local coffee shop.

An in-home espresso maker can be expensive, no doubt about it. And we aren’t going to try to convince you that the $309 for our PRO 2 is cheap just because it’s half the price of a La Pavoni lever machine. That would be ridiculous. They are both expensive. Even our original Classic at $154 is a significant amount to spend. But, we wanted to understand how affordable our espresso makers were when compared to other methods of getting your daily fix, namely from a café. We decided to do some math, and it turns out, when compared to buying at a coffee shop, the Flair is cheaper every time, no matter the Classic, Signature or PRO 2.

Consider every shot of espresso is $2.50 and you buy a shot at your favorite cafe every working day, all year. That’s $12.50 per week and $650 per year! If you buy a Flair PRO 2 for $309 and make a coffee yourself five days a week, every week of the year, you’ll only spend $515! And this isn’t using any low-end coffee! For this exercise, we used the 12oz price from our partners, Black + White Coffee Roasters, the owners of which are dual U.S. Barista Champions.

Of course, in the second year of ownership, the costs for the Flair are even less, and the savings are greater if you purchase a Classic or Signature!

#2 – Real espresso. Not just strong coffee.

Okay, so the Flair is an affordable way to get espresso. But what about these cheaper devices on Amazon? Don’t they give you the same thing and it’s even less expensive?

Here’s a myth we love to debunk. Despite what our competitors say, in almost all cases they are only producing strong coffee, not real espresso, because they can’t consistently generate the 6-9 BAR of pressure needed for an espresso extraction.

To get a bit scientific, the lever of all our Flairs is the same, and it creates a 9 to 1 mechanical ratio, meaning that the force exerted on the end of the lever is multiplied by a factor of nine inside the brewing chamber. As we usually need about 40 pounds of force on our lever to brew, that equals 360 downward pounds of force onto the piston! This is almost impossible to replicate with hand-pumped devices or basic hand presses like the Aeropress. Yep they are cheaper, but it’s not really espresso. If you want the real deal, come to Flair.

#3 – Café Quality.

Okay now you believe that the Flair is more affordable than going to a cafe, and produces better espresso than our competitors on the low end of the cost spectrum. But, isn’t going to a cafe still going to produce higher quality shots? Isn’t it worth the money?

This is probably our second favorite myth to debunk. Extracting espresso is a scientific process, as we discussed above. So, as long as you replicate the science that’s happening in that big cafe machine, you’ll get the same result right? This is the vision that the Flair was founded on. We looked at modern espresso machines and took away everything that wasn’t necessary. The result is a replica of the science that happens with any extraction; hot water is forced through a puck of evenly ground coffee, creating a chemical process that results in espresso in your cup.

And you don’t have to take our word for it. One of our Ambassadors, Lem Butler, who was a U.S. Barista Champion as well, brings his Flair with him traveling because he’s never sure of the quality he’ll get from a cafe, but knows that he can get cafe-quality from the Flair. In his own words he says, “What I use it for, for my own personal use, is to travel…One of the biggest questions I get is, ‘I want to make a coffee but can’t make it taste like I get in a shop.’ So when I started using the Flair I was like ‘Ding, Ding!’”

#4 – Espresso in less than two minutes.

Okay, so now we’ve convinced you. The Flair is cost-effective, and out-performs almost any other option, especially those that are close in price. But, you’ve also heard that pulling a shot manually is difficult and complicated.

Whenever we hear this, we love to give our nay-sayers the chance to watch us in action. True, we at Flair Espresso have lots of experience pulling shots. But, on a normal day, once you’ve practiced a little, it’s easy to prepare and pull a shot in less than two minutes. Two minutes! That’s nothing. Who doesn’t have that kind of time in the morning?!

And, we’ve got proof. Check out the below video, from our webstore, that shows, in a single cut, how an espresso is prepped and pulled in under two minutes. Also, everything packs up into a case that has about the same surface area as a piece of paper, how complicated could it be?!

#5 – Simple, no hassle cleaning.

Luckily, our designer, who has a background as a biomedical engineer, really did think of everything. The Flair is a patented device, and a big part of this patent protection is our removable brewing head. You won’t find it anywhere else. The ability to remove the brewing head is key, as it allows all cleaning to be done simply and either in the sink or over the trash bin. Just remove the brewing head, using the custom silicone covers to ensure you don’t burn your fingers, and pull the brewing head apart. You can knock the coffee puck into the trash and then rinse in cool water.

And because the coffee touching parts are stainless steel, all that’s needed is cool water to clean. Soap is actually not recommended as it can impact the taste of your coffee. And there’s never any need to backflush, descale or use expensive detergents in any cleaning cycles. Once you’ve brewed, just remove the brew head, knock out the puck, rinse with cool water and set aside to dry.

It couldn’t be simpler.

#6 – Espresso that’s good for the planet.

We’ve all got a responsibility to be more sustainable these days. With Flair, you can use your daily espresso routine as a way to cut your impact on the planet and reduce your overall footprint. The Flair needs no pods, even those that can be recycled, and when brewing at home, there’s no need for anything disposable besides your grounds, which will decompose on their own.

Also, because the Flair is fully manual, there’s no need for electricity. On grid or off, the Flair performs as advertised, infusing a bit of environmental responsibility into your daily lives.

What are you waiting for? Join the community of Flair-istas today.