Excellent review! Much thanks!

On the difficult grinding when encountering particularly hard beans, what I do is to tilt the grinder at least 45° to the side. I believe this makes less beans hit the burrs concurrently so it makes the grinding much lighter effort (however makes it longer as well).

At the prices of hand grinders vs motorised, you can get two separate grinders for the price of one. So if budget allows at some point in the future, you can even consider getting a dedicated unit for espresso and another for pourovers and coarser grinds. I use my 1Zpresso Z-Pro for pourovers while using the ACE48 for espresso, for less than a Breville! If the effort of manual grinding gets too old, a cheap cordless electric screwdriver can be used for less than RM70.

Taobao is our coffee enthusiast's heaven!

Malaysia doesn't allow you to bring in green coffee without AP.

However, I used to bring it 2~3kgs of green coffee without being noticed every time I traveled back from Taiwan.

Yes, there is an AP requirement for shipping in green coffee beans, but confirmed no restrictions for roasted.

That being said, so far most people haven't had problems bringing in a few kg, either in luggage or even by post/courier. I've even heard from a relatively reliable source that they are no longer enforcing the AP requirement anymore and some commercial roasters are directly sourcing from farms.

I have bought coffee from Fisher. They are an award winning roaster located in Tsingdao.

If you visit their taobao's side, they will list out every details of the coffee they sell, including roast profile's curve, recommended recipe etc.

But remember, don't forget to support local roasters.

I have been using the 1st generation of 1zgrinder for nearly 2 years, since 2017's November. Bought it when I was still studying in Taipei.

Mine was Italian burr with Titanium coating, dual axis. Overall the grinder consistency is good for the price (bought at NT2800). I generally use it for Aeropress & Pour-over, but occasionally use it for S.O.E when I still worked in a cafe where we only had 1 Espresso grinder for the house blend. I made some of the best Espresso shots I ever had using this grinder, with Single Origin like some Gesha and Light roast Ethiopian (which requires finer grind.)

The new models after mine should have improved even more.

In my opinion, lesser fines doesn't not necessarily translates into a better cup of coffee. When brewing finely roasted coffee, an adequate amount of fines often contributes to a fuller body and sweeter cup without sacrificing clarity.

As for the grinder, since you are looking for a backup unit, I would suggest you to pick the highest price with your affordability and it shouldn't disappoint you.

i recently got the 1zpresso je from taobao for around rm500 shipped. Does it go fine enough for espresso? I would think so as it clogged my pressurized portafilter on my first try.
Grind is consistent, at least for the past month I have been using it.
The build quality is solid with an anodised aluminium enclosure. Really attractive design imo. Grinding feels smooth and quick.

My only gripe is that the grind size tuning isn't intuitive. There are numbered guide but they do not mean anything since the step size is very small. You would need to memorize the number of clicks from fully closed to get reproducible results ( this is likely true for most hand grinders though)

iinm, the difference between the je and js is the dlc coating and the burr design. they recommend je with the "italmill" burr for espresso.

the newly released je plus looks very similar to the je but with a slimmer grip (great for smaller hands) and a high carbon steel burr but the the burr design looks the same to me.
Disclaimer: complete novice here, got tired of instant coffee.   

Just got Gemilai CRM-3605 from Shopee. If anyone budget for RM 1k for the espresso machine, this would be a machine I would get. Previously I'm using Philips Saeco Poemia modified with PID and removing the pressure valve in portafilter.

Pros for the machine:
1. Built in digital PID.
2. Come with Pressure gauge.
3. Timer user adjustable for coffee extraction and hot water. Default is 25s and I set it to 30s. You can stop anytime by pressing the brew button during extraction.
4. Different spout for hot water and steamer.
5. Use standard 58mm portafilter.
6. Come with blind filter for backflushing. I don't expect 3 way valve for such a cheap machine so it's a surprise!

Cons
1. Single boiler machine. Can't expect dual boiler for such a cheap price. If you wanted dual boiler, they have a commercial model but it's RM 2k++
2. Build quality is kind of cheap. The plastic parts feel flimsy.
3. Included tamper is plastic.

Tried using this method when I was working in Taipei. The easiest way to do it, is to have two thermo-controlled kettles and set the temperatures accordingly. So when it comes to the stage where you need a lower temp, the second kettle holds the temperature you need. I tried setting 95c for the 1st Fellow Stagg and 85 for another. Work great for certain coffees.

By the way I once talked to Berg personally, and he told me that back in Simple Kaffa, they brew Washed coffee and Natural Coffee differently. Particularly, they often avoid blooming washed coffees and just pour the water straight up. According to Berg, they want to emphasize floral notes on Washed coffee where sweetness is not necessarily the most important flavor element.

However, I visit the relocated shop this year and realized that they convert back to V60 already.

Cool. Where did you buy ice dripper from?

Is it this one? https://www.espressogear.com/products/timem...ice-dripper-set

Thanks. Mind sharing your recipe with this ice dripper?