Vario (Modified)

The only grinders I’m aware of that offer a true balance of mouthfeel and clarity are DRM grinders, which have two separate burr sets - a conical grinder which handles the first grinding phase, then a flat burr which handles the finishing phase (see photo below). These tend to be very expensive though, and the least expensive one I am aware of is the KafaTek SDRM, which is $2,700 - and can be over $10k from Titus. I have a KafaTek SDRM grinder on order, but I also own a Lagom Casa. The Casa is a lovely grinder for light roast espresso, and it’s fine for medium roast, but anything beyond a medium roast and it starts to become quite unpleasant in my opinion. It also worth noting that the Casa isn’t a great grinder for milk drinks - as usually you’re not using light roast or going for clarity in milk based drinks. It’s workable for Cortados or macchiatos, but with Lattes and even cappuccinos - it’s ok at best. If you’re drinking traditional espresso roasts and making milk drinks - I think the Niche is going to be a far better fit. If you only drink straight espresso and generally pull light or medium roasted coffees - the Lagom Casa is really exceptional. It is however worth considering what espresso machine you’re pairing this with. Most folks don’t feel light roast espressos is all that great from a flat 9 bar machine (I’m one of them), so it depends on the overall picture of what you’re using it with and what your goals are. If you have a Flair 58 Plus 2, drink straight espresso and want to make light and ultra light espresso and soup shots - the Lagom Casa is going to work amazingly well, and will be one hell of a value - often providing results as good as a high end 64mm flat. It also makes very good pour overs and has a great workflow. If you don’t know what you want and all of this feels overwhelming - get the Niche. You’ll see a lot of folks post pictures of their setups, and they’ll have multiple “titan” grinders that are several thousand dollars each, and then still have their trusty Niche Zero off to the side for traditional spro and milk drinks. I’ve never seen a home setup photo with multiple high end Titan espresso grinders, and a Lagom Casa still on the bench. The appeal of the Casa is its small size and that it offers reasonably similar performance to $1,500 high clarity espresso grinders, for $1k less - but a $3k+ high clarity espresso grinder will blow it out of the water. The appeal of the Niche is that it offers just about as good as it gets performance for traditional dark roast spro and you don’t really need more than the Niche to max out a dark roast espresso. https://preview.redd.it/fjra4vospznf1.jpeg?width=1920&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=436c945eeb52ebc9c58f8e4bc75706566c9bc60e

I have to preface this with a very clear and honest disclaimer that I truly don’t mean to sound like a complete and utter twat. With that out of the way - if you’re drowning your espresso in sufficient milk (or alternative) to qualify as a Latte - it doesn’t matter what grinder you use, as long as it can grind fine enough to pull 9 bar of pressure. Lattes and heavy milk drinks taste best with dark roast beans - and you actually don’t want clarity in a grinder for beans of that nature as it highlights negative aspects of the beans and makes unpleasant tasting drinks. The same can be said with light roast beans - if you have light roast beans (high acidity tasting) and add a bunch of milk - the resulting drink it sour and unpleasant. Thus, if you drink one latte a day, which is a small amount of dark roast espresso that is aggressively diluted with milk - you can get away with a grinder that has less exacting tolerances and generates a lot of fines. A niche is awesome for this purpose - but really any traditional grinder like a Baratza vario, mazzer mini, or even an inexpensive Baratza ESP will do just fine.