Varia Brewing - VS6 Grinder

The VS6 is in a league of it's own, but I'd recommend it only if you plan on getting a few extra burrs in the future. Sure, the stock burr is highly versatile and I've already put 3kg through it, but there is so much more left on the table. If you're still discovering and not willing to invest, sure, I'd recommend a DF54 and a hand grinder just like everyone does in the beginning. A hand grinder is also always good to have laying around just in case your electric is unavailable or you happen to travel. If you're into the VS6, I can tell you that: 1. The adjustment is so precise that you could switch coffees even at espresso level and still fall on the dial in 2. The alignment is perfect each time you (easily) change the burrs 3. The Silver Plasma and Gold burrs make exceptional espresso and filter, the first being body/sweetness focused while the later being clarity focused. 4. It's a premium grinder, has minimal retention, has a plasma generator, the motor is powerful and has a lot of torque, variable rpm. You could have a read on my detailed experience in [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/espresso/comments/1fetpr0/comment/loon8g8/)

I’d suggest the Varia VS6 just because it’s a bit more versatile and cheaper than the niche now. But not for this user. Both are over their budget.

This is what I would do in your position: get a bambino plus and a Varia V6. Here is my logic: I think you would love the Profitec Go (I do), but it will take a bit more time than you have right now to get it heated up and pull a shot. The Go is known for its fast heat-up time, but that’s “fast “ for people who don’t have toddlers. You could use a smart plug to heat it in the morning, but if you leave it on and let it go into Eco mode during the day it will take a couple of minutes to get to temp every time you go back to use it. For me it’s no big deal, but the Bambino will be more immediate. Once your kid(s) is a bit older you might want to upgrade your machine. By then you will have a better idea of exactly what you want. For the grinder I would skip the DF series for two reasons: 1) lack of consistency, and 2) tariffs. Get a grinder right away that you won’t feel the need to upgrade. I have a DF 54 and it is easy to use and pretty quiet, but I’m not happy with the consistency. I’m looking at Lagom Casa or more likely Varia V6, and I am hoping the new grinder I get paired with my Go will be my end game. All the DF machines (and anything labeled Turin or MiiCoffee) are from the same factory in China. The tariff situation is likely to make them much less economical than when I bought mine. Given you already know what you like in terms of espresso taste/quality, I would skip the built-in grinder. You’ll want something that will get you better tasting shots than what you can get with the quality of the built-in.

Varia VS6. WAY better than a Timemore 078 or 078S

Tom’s grinder labs did an exhaustive video on it (one of the main reasons I took a risk on it) after two months of daily use - and his review is glowing, he calls it a end game grinder and that it can go head to head with any $5k grinder. I would disagree on the Pietro getting positive reviews though. The overwhelming consensus is that the burrs are good and the in cup product is great (agreed) but it’s one of the worst, if not the worst grinder over $100 to actually use. Some reviewers have even done entire videos simply complaining about how unpleasant it is to use, and the creator (Lance) even modified his to use a drill on it, obviously because it sucks to use. I put up with the Pietro, because of the stellar cups it produces and it’s way smaller and less messy than my former EK43 - so it was worth it. I also think the cups it produces are superior enough to an 078, that it’s also worth putting up with the unpleasant operating experience. Now that I have the VS6, after the initial head to head I did with it over the first few days, I’ve used my Pietro only once, and it was yesterday - just to circle back on it and compare it to the VS6. It only validated my opinion that at least for me, the Varia was substantially better tasting and far more pleasant to use. I’ve since found 800 rpm to be my sweet spot with most beans on the Varia where I get the perfect amount of silky body. Some folks bought VS6’s based on my review - based on the time it took mine to arrive, some of them should be getting theirs later this week - so hopefully this weekend we’ll hear more opinions.

Well, if you’re based in the US, you probably shouldn’t do anything until this tariff BS settles. You don’t want to buy something and find out you’re stuck with a huge import tariff tax. If the above were settled - I’d say just buy a $200 ZP6. For the coffee I prefer (ultra light single origin washed coffees) the Pietro is better, but for naturals and processed coffees, I personally like the lower bodied presentation of the ZP6 more. That said, the ZP6 is downright fun to use, and grinds lightning fast, and while the Pietro IS better for washed coffee’s on my palate - it’s not worlds better and given the ZP6 is less than 1/2 the cost, more fun to use, faster grinding (you won’t mind it’s not electric) and still better than 64 SSP’s - it’s kind of a no brainer. The Varia VS6 with gold burrs is the best pour over grinder I’ve ever used/tasted - and at least for me, is a big step up from a Pietro. That said - if the tariffs come into play, it’s a several thousand dollar setup and it’s a lot larger/heavier than your Ode 2 and makes it largely moot.

People love to focus on the hot item of the moment, and the Pietro is just that. People also tend to like to justify their purchases and make a bigger deal out of gains than reality. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great grinder - and for minimally processed washed coffees where you want to focus on the flavor of the terroir, the Pietro is the best hand grinder I’m aware of. That isn’t to say the ZP6 isn’t spectacular for that same coffee, but the Pietro will best it, and the amount it will do so depends on the particular coffee. Now, and this is really important - at least for me, the ZP6 is almost universally superior to the Pietro for fruit forward, heavily processed coffees. Cups are much juicier, and the lighter, more tea like body lends itself are better to those flavors, and generally won’t get to a point of turning foul - where as the Pietro can often make some of those same beans unpleasant. If you only drank ultra light washed coffees from Sey - perhaps the Pietro is your Goldilocks hand grinder. If you only drank processed, fruit forward coffee’s from roasters like Hydrangea and Luminous - then the opposite would be true and I’d actually steer you towards the ZP6 OVER the Pietro. If you just want to explore lots of light roast coffee’s, I’d say you’re going to get a hell of a lot more enjoyment from the ZP6 and $300+ of premium coffee. Even with a $200+ per pound ultra rare coffee, I’d never feel like I wasn’t getting my money’s worth out of the bean if I “only” could use my ZP6. If I could only have one grinder, it wouldn’t be a ZP6 or a Pietro, but if I could only have one high clarity grinder - it would be a hard choice, but it just might be the ZP6… but I value it’s haptic feedback and pleasurable use which heighten my daily routine, it’s vastly superior portability, it’s much faster grind time, and it’s better range covering more types of coffees well, at least for my palate.

If you're needing to grind 60g at a time you can count the casa out, probably the P64 and varia too. The casa hopper (is it really a hopper?) supposedly holds 30g, I can comfortably feed it 37g in one go, but a 60g dose you'd definitely need to feed it in two parts. I think 60g would be pushing it for all of the hoppers you've mentioned, although I think both the ode and timemore have extended hoppers available if needed.

Once you can bump up your budget, I highly suggest the Varia VS6. At the risk of hyperbolic evangelism, it's almost unicorn like. A single grinder that does high-clarity filter (w/o the sharpness of ssp mp) and modern espresso in one burr set (gold). Although, the stock burrs do filter very well while also doing a better job with traditional espresso. The burrs take less than a min to swap, and there's about 8 options to choose; all relatively inexpensive. If you pick it up, I'd start with the stock burrs. It's completely likely that you'd be satisfied with them for both filter and spro. You can always try more burrs in the future.

For this budget I’d recommend Varia VS6 with a conical and flat burr to emphasize both espresso and filter. Watch this review: https://www.tomsgrinderlab.com/varia-vs6-review/ I have VS3 and I am very pleased and impressed with it.

I bought a Varia VS6 during BFCM last year. It definitely shipped from China.

I don't have too many points of reference to compare to. My prior filter grinder was a Fellow Ode 2, and my only other espresso grinder I've tried are EK43 and Weber EG-1 at my friend's coffee shop. It does the job really well for me because I wanted a single grinder to do both espresso and filter. Not needing to zero the burrs is very nice, the retention is minimal to zero, and the build is pretty great. The only slight complaint I have now is that there are a bit more fines than I'd like for filter, but it's not as apparent as when I first got the grinder. That and the grinds come out a tad clumpy for espresso even with RDT. Good puck prep pretty much circumvents that issue though. For the price that I got it for during the sale, I have no complaints really.

Really hoped that the Varia would make a better showing here.  I wonder if the dial can be modded a bit to keep it from wandering (add friction material somewhere, maybe?) The noise of the Baratza puts me off, too.  I get offended these days by design decisions that don’t seem to care about the end user’s happiness.  I shouldn’t be forced to hate grinding coffee in the morning even if it’s just for thirty seconds. I did a lazy “noise analysis” vid of the earlier £500 grinder video to help me visualize their differences: https://youtu.be/3ELGcSK1G_4?si=5QGq5dh2InxT0DlP

I have a Varia and I love mine. I get great espresso from it. Sad it didn't get a good review from James