Alinea’s Longtime Designer Reimagines the Coffee Maker

Martin Kastner in the French Alps, where the coffee is as good as the views. All images courtesy of Martin Kastner.

In the early days of the web, well before he opened Alinea, chef Grant Achtaz emailed 40 designers in search of someone who could create new ways of serving food. Only one person replied—Martin Kastner, a European transplant whose resume included restoring historical metal works in Western Bohemia. The pair hit it off and Kastner has gone on to design an array of rule-breaking wares for Alinea, including groovy-looking ones with animal names—the peacock, the squid, and critters.

During the pandemic, Kastner, founder of Crucial Detail in Chicago, finally scratched an 11-year-itch and set about redesigning the coffee maker. The Orb One, is a unique, single-serve (8 oz.), stovetop coffeemaker that offers the flexibility to change the coffee type by simply using a different grind, ranging from the crispness of drip to espresso’s lushness and intensity. Kastner recently floated the Orb One out on Kickstarter and the project has already surpassed its $250,000 goal with $321,000 (and counting).

This summer, Kastner will begin production of the first run of 5,000 units. We caught up with him to hear about the past year of experimentation, the challenges of designing for something subjective (taste) and how he discovered that any coffee machine worth its grounds needs a shower head in it.

The Orb One can brew a variety of coffees. As for the latte art, you’re on your own.

Before we get to the Orb One, tell us about your background. You were born in the Czech Republic, trained as a blacksmith and, for a spell, restored historical metal works in Western Bohemia near the German border. What did you do there?

It really varied from making gates to fixing a weapon if it was damaged. When you're restoring historical pieces, you're not really allowed to weld something as you’d like. You have to follow the techniques and use the tools of the time. It was good training for design because you think of the makers and their experience: What is their point of view? What is their perspective? You translate that into the way you're going to approach the work.

How did you make your way to Chicago?

My wife is from the United States, so I moved to the U.S. to be with her. Once I was in the states I quickly learned that if you are a blacksmith with experience restoring historical metal works, have your restoration license, and a Masters of Fine Arts in conceptual art and sculpture, you're not really going to get a great job.

You now work with Grant Achatz. How did you two connect?

At the time in the late 1990s, the web was beginning to be a thing, so I learned to make a website and put myself out there with a little portfolio on the web. I think I was one of only a few designers in the Midwest to have a website so if you searched for designers there, I was one of the first that came up. That’s how I connected with Grant. He emailed like 40 people, and I was the only one who responded—this was before Alinea. He messaged me and said he was a chef looking for someone to design new ways of serving food.

That was intriguing because I am interested in sensory perception. Food was something I had been thinking about at that point. It is not just a material that you can mold and form the way you do other sculptural materials. It actually has this ability to cross this bodily boundary and nourish you, and you can experience it with all your senses.

We spent a lot of time chatting about what the restaurant experience could become and the true limits of an experience. Some were too far-fetched.

Out of curiosity, what didn’t make the cut?

Looking at the idea of discomfort. We agreed that things that are not necessarily pleasurable don't have a place in a fine dining experience that's very expensive. In the end, the experience has to feel pleasant.

Then some things that were too technically complex at the time, like coordinating sound with flavor, texture, and mouth feel. With the technology in the early 2000s, we just couldn’t pull that off.

You’ve been working on the Orb One for how many years exactly?

It started when I had kids, and my older daughter is now 11-and-a-half.

What did you experience during this time period, and how did it influence the Orb One?

My wife and I would consume a lot of coffee and work late. Once you have a child that changes your rhythm. We would make coffee in the morning, and I could see the quality of the experience getting worse. That made me think about what kind of an object I would like to interact with and what would fit into our lifestyle. I also like to drink different types of coffee, but I didn’t want to spend a lot of time making them because I had a kid tugging at my pants.

Can you spot the shower head? An inside look at what exactly goes into the Orb One.

How did you make the jump from that experience to the Orb One?

In between, I created the Porthole, a vessel that can be used to make infusions, like cocktails, oils, and teas. As I was testing various prototypes and production samples, I used it to make cold brew coffee, and it worked quite well.

But aesthetically it was like having an ant farm, so I started to think about what would make the coffee more appealing. I’ve learned a lot along the way, like our focus on the coffee filter was completely misguided, but it got me where I was going later.

How so?

Over time I figured out that the filter is only the last step in coffee filtration. The physical filter only filters out a small number of particles. The coffee filters itself to a great degree. That’s the idea for the geometry of the basket of the Orb One. As the water passes the coffee grounds, it works like sand filtration of water. It is a fantastic method of filtration.

You went deep on this and added a shower head to the machine, which I did not see coming. How did that get in there?

In our research on brewing methods, we looked at an old-fashioned espresso machine, which has a big hunk of brass that the water is channeled through, the group head. It is used to stabilize the temperature of the water, so you don’t burn the coffee. And I also saw that if you don’t distribute the water flow inside the machine, you get erosion, so-called channeling. That's the idea for a shower head. We channel the water through the shower head, and it comes out in fine geysers into the coffee chamber and won’t cause erosion.

Did you come up with the idea of for the shower head while in the shower?

No, I just learned a fair amount about extraction. The Aha moments came during the initial stages of the pandemic. We were at home every day, with a Moka pot and no coffee grinder, and I thought, How can I make this better? It quickly took up all of my time.

What’s been the most difficult aspect to design?

The little things are surprisingly difficult. The Orb One makes a single serving of coffee and to scale it up and still get extremely good coffee is difficult. We’ve gone through dozens of iterations to try and double the volume from one cup to two cups, and it’s just not a linear thing. I wouldn't say it's a lost battle, but it’s definitely a challenge we’re still trying to dial in.

Any other notable challenges?

The big challenge is that coffee is such a subjective experience. I have made a lot of people coffee on the Orb One, and I’ve pulled drinks that I thought were average and people said it was the best coffee of their life. Other times I thought I pulled an excellent cup but it didn’t suit the person drinking it. The subjectivity is a big component here. It’s a component that I don’t have answers to.

Will the Orb One make its way to Alinea?

It’s possible. I brought it to one of the meetings with Grant and the front of the house got excited about using it during coffee service as a coffee bar for one of their other restaurant projects. Instead of an espresso machine, you could have seven Orbs and make it a performative experience. The espresso machine has always been against a wall and the waiter turns their back to the guest or it blocks the view of the process. The Orb One allows you to make the coffee and be engaging. That is one conversation we’ve had. We’d have to hash it out a bit more.