Developing an interactive system from scratch, "Meraki" aims to enable novices to make a professional cup of coffee at home | Early-stage project

Author | Zhong Yixuan

Looking at the current market of household semi-automatic coffee machines, some brands that focus on cost - effectiveness fail to provide a good experience in terms of taste and flavor. On the other hand, the household coffee machine series developed by leading commercial coffee machine brands are not only expensive but also more suitable for professional baristas' families in terms of usage scenarios. The human - machine interaction experience is not friendly to beginners.

But now, beginners can also make a professional cup of coffee at home.

36Kr recently got in touch with a company that focuses on this area. "Meraki" is a company dedicated to the research and development of semi - automatic Italian coffee machines for household use. Currently, it exports mainly to overseas markets in Europe and the United States, with a price of around $1800 (equivalent to about 13,000 RMB).

Founder Chen Xu summarized the features of Meraki to 36Kr with three keywords - commercial configuration, beginner - friendly human - machine interaction, and the smallest size under the same configuration.

Meraki adopts the high - end configuration of commercial coffee machines. It uses the same professional coffee grinder as Timemore, is equipped with a self - developed small - sized commercial - grade rotary pump, and a PID dual - boiler system. The built - in temperature sensor and weighing design ensure the stable flavor of each cup of coffee.

In addition, Meraki has also developed an interaction system from scratch in terms of human - machine interaction.

Since different types of coffee beans require different parameters, differences in grinding fineness, coffee powder quantity, extracted liquid volume, and temperature can all bring about completely different tastes. In a household setting, people tend to pursue a diverse range of tastes and experiences when making coffee. However, for most people, adjusting the parameters of coffee beans has become a major daily challenge. The process of adjusting production parameters is both time - consuming and wasteful of coffee beans. If the machine has poor stability, the adjusted parameters may change, making it extremely unfriendly for beginners to make high - quality coffee at home and resulting in high waste costs for coffee beans.

The high threshold and fear of making mistakes, in other words, the poor human - machine interaction experience, are one of the important reasons why people were reluctant to buy semi - automatic Italian coffee machines in the past.

In this regard, Meraki is equipped with CoffeeSense™ technology. Through cooperation with upstream coffee roasters, professional baristas adjust the parameters of the coffee beans before they leave the factory, and then attach NFC chips to the coffee bean packaging bags. After users get such coffee beans, they only need to scan the chip on the Meraki coffee machine, and the parameters will be automatically synchronized. Then, they can fine - tune the flavor according to their personal preferences and enjoy a barista - level cup of coffee.

Detailed product image of Meraki

Chen Xu also told 36Kr that among the users who bought Meraki, 40% were first - time buyers of Italian coffee machines. "Many people may think that our $1800 price corresponds to an upgrade demand, but actually, many users chose Meraki for their first coffee machine purchase."

This also means that even novice coffee drinkers have high requirements for coffee taste. Over the decades, the global popularity of chain, specialty, and even ready - to - drink coffee has subtly cultivated and improved the taste of coffee consumers. In other words, although we may not be able to make a good cup of coffee today, we can definitely buy one on the street.

Chen Xu said that the human - machine interaction design of Meraki is based on the perspective of "training baristas". "This is not to increase the operation difficulty but to do professional things with simple expressions. On the contrary, the operation experience of some beginner - friendly coffee machines on the market sometimes fails to produce a good cup of coffee."

He took the existing coffee machines on the market as an example. The operation interfaces of some beginner - friendly coffee machine products are simply classified into "latte" and "cappuccino". However, what really affects the flavor of espresso is the grinding fineness, powder quantity, liquid volume, and extraction temperature. As for the parameters of the coffee beans that ultimately determine the flavor, there is no differentiation. The coffee made by such machines is bound to be disappointing.

Therefore, Meraki's human - machine interaction starts from the three major modules of coffee grinding, extraction, and weighing, and designs an interaction system from scratch. It uses an intuitive and simple interaction interface to present professional content comparable to a barista training system.

For example, in the weighing process, Meraki uses grams as the standard rather than time, being accurate to the grams of coffee powder and the grams of extracted liquid. For more professional users, they can also use Meraki to adjust the extraction temperature and grinding fineness.

Product image of Meraki

As of today, the global coffee machine market has broad prospects. According to QYResearch data, the global coffee machine market size was approximately $13.29 billion in 2023 and is expected to reach $16.72 billion in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.3% from 2024 to 2030. Among them, the CAGR of household Italian coffee machines represented by De'Longhi and Breville remains at around 15%. In addition, driven by the market education of domestic coffee brands and the impact of the pandemic, the demand for household coffee machines has begun to show a significant increase. Taking China as an example, according to Aowei Cloud Network data, the sales scale of the Chinese household coffee machine market increased from 1.11 billion RMB in 2018 to 2.37 billion RMB in 2022, with a compound growth rate of 22.7%.

In the European and American markets, the demand for household coffee machines continues to rise. The United States and Europe have always been leading in the coffee machine consumer market. Statista data shows that in 2022, their market sizes reached $3.52 billion and $4.98 billion respectively, accounting for 29.4% and 41.6% of the global market. Taking the United States as an example, as a major coffee - consuming country, the United States has about 150 million coffee enthusiasts, and 80% of them are used to having at least one cup of coffee at home. The potential of the household coffee machine market is even greater.

Founder Chen Xu told 36Kr that he has long - term overseas living experience and once worked on product R & D at Dyson. The reason he chose the traditional category of coffee machines for his startup is to fill the market gap of "professional configuration + low threshold" for household coffee machines.

Tracing back the history of coffee machines, semi - automatic Italian coffee machines were basically mature in the 1960s and have been long - controlled by European and American small household appliance giants. Coupled with the high technical threshold of coffee machines, product iteration has been slow. However, Chen Xu believes that people's demand and experience for making coffee are on the rise. "Many products can no longer meet people's needs. We also hope to have the opportunity to disrupt this category and compete with traditional European and American companies."

In short, if in the past, a good bag of coffee beans, a good barista, and a good coffee machine were all necessary conditions for making a good cup of coffee, then today, Meraki wants to enable a beginner to make a good cup of coffee at home.

It is reported that the household Italian coffee machine brand "Meraki" has recently completed a tens - of - millions - level angel round of financing. This round of financing was jointly invested by Kaifeng Venture Capital, Haiyi Investment, and Timemore Technology. The funds obtained will be invested in key areas such as product R & D and market expansion.