LUCCA Atom 75 vs. Eureka Atom 75: Grinding Reimagined

If you’ve never heard of LUCCA until now, this is a good time for a proper introduction. LUCCA is Clive Coffee’s product brand, born out of a desire to create dynamic, functional, and beautiful products for home and professional baristas. We collaborate with Italian espresso machine and grinder manufacturers so you can craft memorable espresso experiences. We even have a line of premium accessories to complete your espresso bar. Our products are meant to solve real problems experienced by real home baristas at all skill levels. Let’s dig into the guiding philosophy behind the LUCCA Atom 75, how the LUCCA Atom 75 can make you a better home barista, the differences between the Eureka Atom 75, and which grinder is best for your needs.

The Guiding Philosophy of Clive Coffee 

Clive Coffee’s bread and butter is talking espresso with our customers on the phone, figuring out their challenges and their coffee desires, and how we can realize them. Home espresso was still a relatively new concept in Clive's infant years. While our collective experience in the specialty coffee industry served our mission well, we spent overtime teaching every new home barista how to dial in their grinder. Thus, we started brainstorming ideas on how to make the initial learning curve much smoother. 

Based on hundreds of calls a month, we figured out fairly quickly that there was a sizable frustration with negative espresso outcomes out of the box. We collected the data and put together trends and patterns such as over/under extraction, channeling, improper dosing, not using a scale, not using an espresso recipe, and eyeballing their shots. However, the biggest issue we discovered was that customers, especially new home baristas, needed help finding a good starting point. Not having a guide meant we saw pounds of coffee waste before pulling their first good shot. 

So, we got to work, started pulling thousands of shots, and the dial-in service was born. Eight years ago, we partnered with Verve Coffee Roasters to give you a bag of coffee with each espresso machine purchase and dial in your grinder for a smooth, out-of-box grinding experience. Now, the dial-in service endures, and you can choose your own coffee based on your own personal tasting preferences. What's better than a bag of freshly roasted coffee on your doorstep just waiting to be brewed? 

The Origins of the LUCCA Atom 75 & TrueGrind

The dial-in service was a huge success. Every grinder paired with an espresso machine was dialed in, and folks began to experience more success pulling their first few shots. A few key goals were achieved: fewer initial adjustments were needed, and less coffee was wasted as a result. 

Naturally, we needed more than the dial-in service, and we were insatiable with our goal of making home baristas better at making espresso. Of course, we thought of a crazy idea—let’s take the dial-in service to the next level and create a grinder that could dial in itself. Initially, we thought this to be an impossible task. Why?

• Dialing in an espresso is something a skilled person can do reasonably quickly, but only after they've had many hours of training and experience.
• Getting an espresso to hit a target recipe quickly requires tweaking several variables of a complex system all at once (dose, time, yield, temperature, grind setting, etc).
• A skilled barista will bring equal parts logic and intuition gained from experience to the problem. The logic tells them which way to adjust one or more variables, and experience & intuition tell them how far they should adjust them.

Yet, while we hit a wall for a while, we realized that with the help of artificial intelligence, we could build a mathematical model of how an espresso shot is made from start to finish, which became TrueGrind. To make Truegrind, we exposed a machine-learning algorithm to a vast data set, which teased out complex relationships between the variables that go into making an espresso.

Thus, you can enter a target recipe (coffee dose, desired liquid espresso yield, and brew time) for the grinder to suggest a starting grind position as a numerical value. You only have to manually turn the adjustment dial in the direction of the arrow and stop when you reach the suggested grind setting. This predictive model constantly grows based on feedback, and data points are entered to improve constantly. Thus, TrueGrind, in a way, does dial in itself, you just have to turn the adjustment knob. Once we achieved results, we needed to materialize it in a grinder; we collaborated with Eureka and based our design on the Atom 75. Pairing the Atom 75’s massive motor, design logic, and large burr set with TrueGrind was a no-brainer. 

With the Lucca Atom 75, we sought to flatten the curve and make home espresso accessible to home baristas at any skill level while maintaining affordability backed up with the bones of a recognized brand and product. Making espresso can be complex and messy; we aim to help you make better espresso, one shot at a time.

Dial in Assitant, AI, & a Better Way to Dial In

Dialing in—a coffee industry term that simply means adjusting your grinder to make your burrs father or closer together with the goal of creating a coarser or finer grind particle size. Dialing in your grinder is one of the pillars of espresso fundamentals. The LUCCA Atom 75 makes espresso more accessible for the home barista by taking out the guesswork at any skill level. 

Take full advantage of TrueGrind by using grinding in recipe mode 

After selecting a coffee from the library, it is transferred to the grinder using the phone app. On the grinder or the phone app, you can enter the stats you want for your dose, weight, and time when you are in recipe mode. TrueGrind will suggest an initial starting point, so move the dial in the direction that is indicated on the screen by the arrow indicator. Sure, you could use the grinder in continuous or timed modes for those who don’t take advantage of the app, but why wouldn’t you use it? You’ll surely get better espresso. Don’t worry if you’re not using a coffee from the library, TrueGrind recipe mode can be used from any profile that you create!