The familiar dark brown coffee beans we all know and love only take that form near the end of the coffee-making process. Coffee beans are actually the seeds inside cherry-like coffee fruit, which are a gray-green when harvested and dried. They also aren't very appealing in that form. Roasting coffee gives it the complex flavors that make it so enjoyable, and few coffee drinkers bother to do it themselves. If you buy your own coffee beans, they almost certainly already come pre-roasted.
Enter the Bonaverde Berlin coffee machine. This big, smart kitchen appliance coffee maker does more than brew coffee. It roasts it, starting with green coffee beans to ensure the results are as fresh as possible. It's a cleverly designed coffee maker that brews a fantastic cup of coffee, but it's held back by its own convenience. The Berlin is over-automated, relying on NFC tags or an oddly implemented Facebook Messenger chatbot instead of a conventional app to start the brewing process, with no manual controls on the device itself. Considering its hefty price tag (starting at $799), it takes too many factors out of the hands of the user and offers too few customization options or backup controls for making coffee on your own terms.
Similar Products
Behmor Brewer Connected Coffee Maker
Mr. Coffee Smart Coffeemaker WeMo Enabled
Philips Saeco GranBaristo Avanti
Craftea Ultimate Tea Maker
Design
The Berlin is a blocky monolith of a coffee machine, measuring 19.5 by 10.2 by 9.8 inches (HWD). The $799 model has a simple white finish, while the $999 version we tested has a matte metallic cover, though the bodies of both are plastic. With all trays and compartments filled and a coffee pot inside, it looks like a big box with a plastic handle poking out of the front. It's a very utilitarian design, lacking any major stylistic flourishes to blend in to almost any kitchen.
The front of the Berlin has a large, open compartment for the included carafe, with a removable conical plastic tray above it for brewing coffee. Another tray near the top of the device holds the green coffee beans for roasting, and features a metal turning arm inside and a small rectangular window for watching the process.
Between the two trays on the front, a black panel holds the Berlin's only indicators and controls. A circular touch-sensitive button activates the machine and prepares it to scan your coffee tag, while a larger rectangular panel above serves as the NFC zone. The light on the button will change color to indicate its status, and you can tap the NFC zone to cancel the scan, but that's it. There is no manual activation for brewing or roasting. In fact, there are no manual controls of any kind. There isn't even a display to show the roasting temperature or provide a timer for brewing.
Bonaverde Berlin Review
A translucent reservoir on the left side of the Berlin holds a liter of water (the amount it uses to brew a pot of coffee). A panel on the right side can be removed to reveal an air filter, though not a very effective one for reducing the smell of roasting coffee. The air filter should be replaced every 30 roasts, and costs $9.99 from Bonaverde.
Green Beans
Bonaverde plans to eventually offer a variety of coffees directly sourced from growers and available to purchase for use with the Berlin, sold in NFC-equipped coffee pods. These pods are much closer to envelopes than plastic K-cups, and are designed to be almost completely compostable. Each pod is a wide wedge-shaped paper pocket, with a perforated top and a visible NFC tag. Tearing the top off removes the tag so it doesn't contaminate your coffee, and reveals the green coffee beans inside the pod. It also turns the rest of the pod into a biodegradable paper filter, which fits in the brewing basket after you pour the beans into the roasting drawer. The only part of the pod that can't be easily composted is the NFC tag, a small one-inch rectangle that can be thrown out with little guilt.
You need to use the Bonaverde coffee pods if you want to roast and brew coffee "manually" from the Berlin itself. It's a quick and automated process that involves tapping the circle on the Berlin's panel, then pressing the NFC tag from the coffee pod to the NFC scanning zone, then tapping the circle again. It's incredibly easy if you have Bonaverde coffee pods, which you can order directly from Bonaverde at $65 for 40 pods (with a replacement air filter included). Currently, Bonaverde's store only offers an unspecified "Green Bean Coffee," with little information about its specific origin.
If the pods were the only way to roast and brew coffee on the Berlin, it would be a big problem. Already its usefulness seems dubious with its complete lack of manual controls or settings, and tying such an expensive coffee maker into a closed ecosystem for buying coffee beans would make it unacceptably limited. Fortunately, that isn't the case, since you can set the Berlin to roast and brew any green bean coffee you want, remotely. Green coffee beans aren't as commonplace at retail as traditional pre-roasted beans, but you can find them with a bit of a search. Sadly, there's no option to simply brew a pot of coffee without roasting first, so you can't use your favorite "normal" beans.
Coffee Concierge
The Berlin doesn't have Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, and there's no app control. It does, however, have a 3G cellular radio and SIM card (provided by Bonaverde) that keeps it online. Instead of using a Bonaverde app to remotely make the Berlin start roasting and brewing, you use Bonaverde's Coffee Concierge Facebook Messenger bot. You can chat with this virtual barista on your phone or computer and simply tell it to start brewing coffee. You can't give precise manual instructions for roasting or brewing, but you can choose from different coffee blends and single-origin bean recipes, which have their own roasting and brewing profiles. The only profile listed when I tested the Berlin was "Juan Carlos Blend," a citrusy medium roast that's presumably the current blend offered by Bonaverde.
Without the Bonaverde pods, you have to rely on the Coffee Concierge's roasting and brewing profiles to best make your coffee. You also have to provide your own paper filters, which is simple enough. Hopefully Bonaverde will upgrade the Berlin with additional functionality and customization for use with your own beans from various origins, to ensure the perfect roast for each type. Since the Berlin is constantly online through its 3G connection, upgrades and maintenance should be fast and simple.
Roasting and Brewing
The coffee-making process involves first roasting the green coffee beans until they become a more familiar brown color, then grinding the roasted beans, then using the grounds to brew a pot of coffee. The roasting process is the rare and unique aspect of the Berlin that most coffee lovers don't do on their own. Over the course of about ten minutes, the Berlin stirs the beans under a heat source until they "pop," sloughing the dried skins off and leaving only the familiar roasted coffee beans behind. It's a cleaner and simpler process than you might think after consuming pre-roasted coffee beans all your life.
Unfortunately, it's also a very smelly process. Roasting coffee beans smells very different from brewing coffee. It produces a strong burnt popcorn-like smell that easily spreads and lingers. In the open PC Labs, the smell of roasting coffee wafted out the door and around the entire floor. In our closed test room, the smell accumulated much more strongly and stuck around for hours. It isn't necessarily a bad smell, like noxious smoke, but it is strong and not particularly pleasant. Keep the windows open when roasting.
After the beans are roasted, the Berlin automatically grinds them, then dumps the grinds into the filter in the brew basket, then brews coffee like a standard drip coffee maker. Those steps in the process aren't particularly interesting, and are entirely based on presets determined by the Berlin and the pod's NFC tag. You can't manually adjust the grind coarseness or the temperature or rate of water flowing into the filter.
Cleaning up is easy, similar to any drip coffee maker. The filter basket, pot, and roasting tray all pull out for rinsing, and there is no growing brick of waste accumulating with every pot for periodic emptying like with Keurig and other machines that use plastic cups.
Good Coffee, Oversimplified
While the whole process is extremely hands-off and can be nasally disruptive, the end result is a darn fine cup of coffee. The test pots we brewed were bright and clean, and easy to drink without using any sweetener (a rare thing, for my taste at least). It's excellent coffee, better than I typically expect from a drip brew (though I've had some incredible espresso pulls in the past that beat it). It really shows off how much better coffee tastes when it's not only fresh-ground, but fresh-roasted. Whether it makes up for the roasting smell is a matter of taste; I didn't mind the slight burning smell, but many of my colleagues complained.
The Bonaverde Berlin is a really interesting concept of a coffee maker built into an expensive package that currently feels too closed off. Roasting coffee beans immediately before brewing coffee produces an excellent cup, and I was impressed by the Berlin purely as a coffee drinker. However, it's over-automated, with none of the roasting or brewing settings open to the user. At $800 or more, you should be given an option for control along with convenience.
We haven't tested any coffee roasting machines on their own, but consumer models are available for $150 to $400. Pairing it with the Behmor Brewer Connected Coffee Maker adds the extra steps of transporting the roasted beans from the roaster to the grinder to the filter, but full app control with variable temperature options and a lower total price than the Berlin make it a worthwhile alternative that currently offers far more options.
The Bonaverde Berlin is a coffee maker that roasts your coffee before brewing it. The results are excellent, but it keeps too many parts of the process out of your control.
Like What You're Reading?
Sign up for Lab Report to get the latest reviews and top product advice delivered right to your inbox.
This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your consent to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe from the newsletters at any time.
Thanks for signing up!
Your subscription has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
Sign up for other newsletters
