We Went to the 2025 SCA Expo!

Over the last weekend in April, I joined the Whole Latte Love crew as we headed down to Houston for the 2025 SCA Expo. If you’re not familiar with the SCA Expo, it’s a little too late now. Well, not really, but the event is being rebranded as “World of Coffee” in 2026 so this year’s show was somewhat historic in that regard. The expo is the largest specialty coffee trade show in North America and is widely attended by shop owners, baristas, roasters, farmers, manufacturers, retailers and of course regular home coffee enthusiasts. We had several reasons for attending this year that I’ll get into throughout this recap but I’ll also be going over the new products that we took a closer look at that will be available at Whole Latte Love at various points throughout this year.

What Were We Up To?

Like I mentioned above, we had a few missions for our trip to the show, not the least of which was running the booth for Varia Brewing. Alongside John and Zach, you could find me at the booth all weekend long demoing the new AKU MINI and PRO scales, the AURA FLUX edition kettles, the Varia FLO, and the Best New Product competitor the Varia VS6 grinder. Suffice it to say that there was tons of interest in everything and we even offered a sneak peek at the Gaggia Classic GT to people who stopped by. We’ve written several pieces on some of the incredible products available from Varia Brewing that I’ll link below, but in particular I definitely recommend that you check out the VS6 and the FLO dripper if you haven’t already.

What’s New and Coming Soon?

While there’s always tons of new stuff to see at the show, I’ll specifically be focusing specifically on the new things you’ll be able to find here on Whole Latte Love in the near or very near future. Some I’m sure you’ll have heard of, but others might not have been on your radar. Either way we’ll start things off alphabetically with the new grinder from Baratza, the Encore ESP Pro.

Baratza Encore ESP Pro

I’ll admit that I was actually pretty surprised by this grinder. The Encore ESP was a significant evolution of the original Encore and a tacit admission that maybe it wasn’t quite up to the task of grinding for espresso. The ESP addressed this by updating the grind adjustment to make half of the grinder’s range suited for espresso with significantly reduced burr movement across 20 of the 40 stepped settings for greater resolution when making adjustment. By comparison the ESP Pro now boasts 40 espresso settings out of the total 60. Adjustment has also been updated and is now stepless with burr position being tracked via a potentiometer and a digital indicator that identifies when you’re in the espresso range.

The fact that this grinder still has ⅓ of its range dedicated to non-espresso grinding was not something I was expecting, but that I really appreciate. At $299.95 the grinder costs twice as much as the base Encore, so that the fact that you can still use it for multi-purpose grinding is appreciated. The iconic grinds bin is still there, so is the variable diameter dosing cup. New to the ESP Pro is a single-dosing lid and an updated feed mechanism that slows the introduction of beans to the burrs to help prevent jamming or clogging. The Pro also features a programmable digital timer that can be set to 0.1 of a second as well as a dedicated single-dosing mode with a built-in auto shut-off that triggers when the grinder no longer detects load on the motor.

Despite its appearance, the ESP Pro is housed mostly in metal, a powder coated alloy to be precise. I’m not sure if the ESP Pro will be quite as revolutionary as the original Encore ESP, it’s definitely an interesting grinder and a pretty significant move for Baratza as their first grinder with fully stepless adjustment. I wouldn’t be surprised if this becomes the aspirational first grinder for a new generation of home brewers. The Encore ESP Pro will be available very soon here at Whole Latte Love.

BWT Besthead FLEX with Built-In Flow Meter

I wouldn’t be surprised if the name of this product is updated or shortened at some point, but it’s actually something that I’ve been aware of for several years now. BWT’s Besthead FLEX has been around for several years at this point, but this updated version is something I’ve been secretly waiting for. What’s great is that it’s exactly what it looks like, it’s a FLEX head that has a flow meter built into it. If that’s not exciting to you, allow me to explain why it should be.

In order to properly care for your espresso machine, using filtered water can prevent buildup of limescale and gypsum inside of your boiler and other water passages. BWT water filters can also improve the flavor of your coffee by exchanging calcium for magnesium which works as a great flavor carrier and won’t form limescale. The only catch (if you could call it one) is that you have to replace your water filters once their filtration capacity has been exhausted. For the inline water filters from BWT, you can use the included chart that comes with the cartridge to determine the filter’s total capacity based on the hardness of your water. 

If you’re being truly diligent about it, you can install a separate flow meter inline with the filter in order to track the total amount of water passed through the cartridge. This is the most accurate to measure as it also tracks water that’s flushed via the bypass valve on the filter head. BWT does make an individual flow meter called the Aquameter, but the design is a bit dated and it’s an additional step in the installation process and another point of failure and leaking in your line. The new head elegantly incorporates this essential tool and updates the interface. It’s also worth noting that the flow meter can work both vertically and horizontally, so there’s no impact on how you can install your filter.

Now I get that you may not be as much of a gadget nerd as I am, but if you’re plumbing your machine, this new FLEX head is a must-have in my book. We expect to have these new heads at some point this year with a more specific date hopefully coming soon.

The Fellow Espresso Series 1

I did get to Fellow’s new espresso machine up close and spent some time with their product experts going over the new design and how things work. That said, Zach actually got get to get hands-on with machine, so I’ll leave it to him to describe his experience with it:

"I had the chance to beat the long lines at the Fellow booth to get my hands on their new Series 1 espresso machine, as well as speak with members of the R&D team behind its development. The design is truly striking in person, featuring a seamless back panel that wraps around the body and front panel reminiscent of the Fellow Aiden. Up close, several details stood out immediately: the oversized drip tray, the small rubberized cup rack, and a custom Fellow-branded portafilter. Navigating the shot selection interface was quick and intuitive, thanks to the responsive circular display and familiar tactile wheel controls."

Brewing on the Series 1 makes use of several programmable variables including temperature and flow rates, as well as the ability to dispense based on time or volume. There is an IOT component to the Series 1 so you'll be able to download profiles created by other users to experiment with. The machine comes with a branded tamper and portafilter, and pitcher, but Fellow also enticed us with matching but sold separately knock boxes that they had paired with the machines. We also got to see some new glassware that's also coming soon and designed for pouring latte art.

With that segue we can get into Zach's experience with steaming, which is somewhat reminiscent of the auto-frothing functionality that has become fairly commonplace on many of Breville and De'Longhi's modern machines:

"Steaming milk followed a workflow typical of single boilers. After pulling a shot, pressing the piano-style steam key (located on the top left) initiates both the warm-up and wand purge. Once ready, you reposition the wand from its purge position to begin steaming. The included milk pitcher, which looks similar to their Eddy pitcher (which I’ve used extensively in my former coffee shop), felt familiar and well-matched. Steam pressure was consistent and closer to what you’d expect from a Gaggia Classic. The wand itself is large in both length and diameter, making it versatile across different pitcher sizes, though the pressure suggests it’s best suited for smaller volumes. Being a cool-touch, temperature-sensing wand, it made finding my “sweet spot” for texture easy and was able to produce paint-like microfoam on the first attempt."

Overall for their first ever espresso machine I think Fellow has maintained a good balance between preserving their core design philosophy while making a competitive product. The Series 1 will be interesting to follow and we expect to have them available for pre-order on Whole Latte Love sometime around Q4 of 2025.

The Rocket Espresso Giotto and Mozzafiato Fast

Ever since the launch of Rocket’s Appartamento TCA it’s been apparent to me that a major overhaul was impending for the rest of the machines in their lineup. The update to the E61 group was one of the coolest things I had seen on a machine in a long time. The new group plus the new valves and portafilter designs have all made it to the new Fast machines. But it’s not just the look of the machines that have received an update, as the name suggests, heat-up times have been improved via the inclusion of a dedicated group heater similar to the ECM Synchronika II.

Like the Synchronika II, the new machines from Rocket will use an electrical heating element to rapidly heat the brew group and portafilter after powering on in order to reduce the total heat-up time to as little as 12 minutes. Just like the original Giotto and Mozzafiato, the Fast versions will be available with both vibration and rotary pumps, and both are regulated via a PID, with controls tucked behind the drip tray. There is a new display that takes the place of the old timer and it’s capable of displaying and communicating more than just shot times.

Another major update to the machines is the aesthetics. Both styles, Giotto and Mozzafiato have been updated with new side panels and a new style of drip tray. When coupled with the updates to the group and portafilter, Rocket has done a lot to further distinguish the designs of their machines from others on the market. They’ll also both be compatible with all of our wood accents from Wiedemann and we have a set of sample machines on the way and I can’t wait to see how good they look in person.

Both the Giotto and Mozzafiato Fast, vibration and rotary models should be releasing around Q3 of 2025 here at Whole Latte Love.

Stone Espresso

Also coming from Rocket to Whole Latte Love later this year is the Stone Lite espresso machine. Stone is a separate project by Rocket, similar to the relationship between ECM and Profitec. The machine is incredibly compact at under 9” wide and only 14” tall. It reminds me a little bit of the ECM Puristika, or more specifically what it might be like if the Puristika was a heat exchanger. But, if your memory goes back as far as mine, the machine might also remind you of the 969.Coffee Elba 3 which was a similarly compact heat exchanger machine, albeit with six legs and a magnetically removable drip tray.

Like the Elba, the Stone lacks a hot water dispenser, making it a purely espresso and milk beverage machine. Maybe it’s just a Rocket thing, but the Stone also eschews the traditional E61 group for a unique design that incorporates brewing control into a switch mounted on top of the group. On the bottom right is a highly stylized pressure gauge and overall I think the machine will really appeal to people who are looking for something that breaks the mold visually. Given its small size the machine is ready to brew and steam in just 10 minutes so there’s definitely a lot to like about it. You can expect to see the Stone Lite here on Whole Latte Love sometime in Q3 of 2025.

Wrapping Up

The SCA show is always a blast and there was plenty to get excited about this year. If you want to learn more about what we saw at the show, be sure to check out our YouTube channel where we'll be posting clips of all the new stuff we saw in even greater detail.

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