# Panasonic Ikawa-style Roaster



## JKK

Perhaps Ikawa have licensed their product to Panasonic Japan.

http://panasonic.jp/roast/product/









Seems to be a bean subscription linked roaster, with roast profiles linked

to each bean purchase, scanned by QRCode.

Doesn't look like you can create custom profiles, such as the Ikawa Pro, & Home models.

Shame they lost the lovely cork features.

-jkk


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## JKK

Some more info translated from the Japanese press release, aknowledges Ikawa's involvement.

Price is about £700 + tax at current rates or £580 in pre-Brexit times. :-(

Based on the concept of "Superb coffee experience at home", a newly developed domestic roaster "Smart Coffee roaster AE-NR 01", periodically distributed carefully selected raw beans and roasted roasted beans A coffee service that provides a roasting profile (program of roasting process) as a set, enjoying the roasted taste and fragrance easily at home, without special roasting techniques and knowledge. In this service, we are affiliated with Ishiko Shoji Co., a coffee import trading company and Naoto N. Goto, Roasted World Convention Champion of 2013, "Tofuku-dong (Coffee)".

Regularly distributed raw beans are delivered every month with Ishiko Shoji's high quality specialty beans around the world selected by strict quality control and safety standards according to the four themes of each season. Also, roasting profile Naoto Nori Goto prepared two or three patterns with different roasting degrees to one type of beans according to the characteristics of beans. You can enjoy the difference of taste and scent of nearly 100 patterns a year.

The roasting profile can be readily roasted by reading data from the cloud with a special application of smartphone or tablet and transferring it to the roaster. In the development of a roaster machine, we realized the fine temperature and air volume control, further ease of use, to derive the characteristics of beans by technical cooperation with British venture company "IKAWA".

The main specifications of home roaster "Smart Coffee roaster AE-NR 01" are roasting method hot air roasting, roasting amount is 50 g / times, roasting time is about 15 minutes (depending on profile) . The main body size is 130 (width) × 342 (height) × 238 (depth) mm. Weight is 4.6 kg. Dedicated applications only support iOS devices.

The price of "smart coffee roaster AE-NR 01" is 100,000 yen (excluding tax).

Contract course of raw bean pack (1 type 200 g enters) The price for 1 year is 3,500 yen / month for 3 types, 3,800 yen / month for 2 sets (both excluding tax).


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## Coffeejon

Very interesting. Just as I thought, would be aimed at the home appliance market. £700 is to high I feel, will be a hit at the £300-£400 price range.


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## Step21

Ikawa have issued a statement on this

IKAWA is proud that the design of our digital micro coffee roasters has inspired Panasonic to develop their 'Smart Coffee Roaster (for home use)' as part of their home roasting service 'The Roast'. We have enjoyed collaborating with their team on this project, contributing to the development with technical know-how and licencing of IKAWA's patented design for use in the Japanese market.

Available from April in Japan, Panasonic's 'The Roast' service centres on a monthly green coffee subscription service using pre-set roast profiles, green coffee supplied exclusively by Panasonic, and a household coffee roaster based on the design of IKAWA's roasters.

We see the launch of the Panasonic's The Roast service as a big step forward in advancing home coffee roasting and appreciation of excellent coffee in Japan.

We feel confident that a result of Panasonic launching a coffee roaster for the domestic market will accelerate growth in roasting coffee at home and improve consumer awareness of where coffee comes from, the value and pleasure of roasting your own coffee, and how an excellent roast can elevate coffee experience.

This will be fantastic progress for Japanese coffee lovers, and will also help IKAWA to make progress of achieving its mission to improve the value chain for smallholder producers and benefit the global coffee industry and drinkers by improving quality and appreciation of excellent coffee.

The IKAWA roasting systems were invented in London by Andrew Stordy and Rombout Frieling during their studies at the Royal Academy of Arts in 2008, and the technical and design innovations have been developed and improved ever since. IKAWA's Sample Roaster is now used by hundreds of coffee professionals around the world and are still made by IKAWA in our London workshop.

There are key differences between Panasonic's The Roast service and IKAWA's roasting systems. Both IKAWA's roasting systems allow users to roast any green coffee, so they are not locked in to one supplier. IKAWA also enables users to create, edit and share roast profiles which are not possible with Panasonic's The Roast service.

The IKAWA Sample Roaster for professionals remains available in Japan, and the IKAWA At Home range will be available in Japan soon.


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## Ramrod

Looks like Ikawa have opened up a new (and presumably much needed) revenue stream.


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