So why, after three years of the grinder being released, did I decide to finally write a review of the ARCO 2-in-1 coffee grinder by the team at Goat Story?
I’ve had the ARCO on my overcrowded coffee bench, in both its motorised and manual formats, since the last wave of Kickstarter shipments went out. Mine landed on my doorstep on October 21st, 2021. During that time I’ve used it at least every two or three days as my primary espresso grinder (we are huge filter people at home, so it’s not used as often as my Fellow Ode Gen2 or my 1zpresso JX), and have built up a familiarity with it that warrants putting pen to paper. Like a beautiful coffee tree slowly passing the seasons until it’s ready to produce big, juicy, flavour-bombs, so is the way I build my requirements for the basis of my reviews.
Let’s jump in!
What’s great about the ARCO 2-in-1?
Grind quality for espresso
The grinder offers a fair balance of flavours, with good mouthfeel and texture. It’s a conical burr (47/32 from Italmil); an established brand with a proven burr geometry that likely hasn’t changed in years, which helps explain why I can get really “classic” results from the Arco for espresso (nice balance, good body, syrupy).
I’m able to discern nuances in flavours from a given coffee with a fair amount of clarity, but I didn’t find myself tasting at the level of the slightly dated Mazzer Robur (a grinder from my distant past as a Barista that I worked with a lot) in terms of clear separation of notes. You’ll need to work both your palette and extraction skills to bring out the origin flavours you’ll no doubt be searching for.
I’d be comfortable with saying that you’re getting an espresso experience that is fairly representative of this budget range of coffee grinders. Don’t expect a world of flavour separation where you can discern each origin note. You’re getting a profile that hints at the variance, but ultimately blends the flavours together quite heavily. But hey, it’s a small conical burr that has been around for awhile, not a big beautiful flat-burr, and despite that it’s still delicious.
Something very important to note is the speed of the grind for espresso when grinding manually. As someone who started espresso grinding seriously at home with the iconic Orphan Espresso Lido E, the difference that has been made in terms of speed for espresso in smaller grinders is absolutely incredible. Good ergonomics in the body and the handle have done wonders for this, as well as with more aggressive burr geometry.
Here’s the ARCO’s speed for 17 grams of dark/full city decaf (quite a soft bean):
| Method | Time to grind |
|---|---|
| Motorised | 22 seconds |
| Manual | 53 seconds |
The shot was slightly too fast and should’ve been about one notch finer on the ARCO, but actually the taste from both methods was fantastic. We ended up with a 22 second shot with ~38 grams of espresso. What’s also super interesting to me is that both shots were identical in extraction time and output, as I’d expected some bigger discrepancy between the two resulting shots given that I can’t grind at ~350rpm, but this probably needs a bit more testing.
For a motorised grinder, this is a pretty long grind time, but remember we’re working with a 47mm burr so we can’t expect any super speedy miracles; but I think the beauty here is the manual speed and the effort to grind. As always, lighter beans will require more effort, but for a well-suited espresso roast profile, you’re likely never going to struggle with the ARCO as a manual grinder.
Design
The ARCO is pretty, especially as I’m not big on flashy light switches and colours, too many curves, or wasted space. I think the ARCO manages to be striking, very compact, and blends in well with many other coffee accessories available today (think black and slightly rounded edges). It’s a tight footprint that won’t consume a lot of bar space, something I have to be very mindful of, and its width means you can often line it up easily next to other coffee tools you have on the bar.
One thing I often don’t care about, but in this case I will touch on, is packaging. The ARCO feels like a very premium piece of coffee gear when it arrives, and the unboxing really was a pleasure. It’s been years now and I still think how fun it was to open up the ARCO for the first time: first impressions are a massive factor for a lot of people!
Adjustability
The ARCO has fully covered the range of grind size I’ve needed for espresso. One of my pet peeves about the otherwise awesome 1zpresso JX is the step size for espresso. I own one of the first versions and each step is about seven/eight seconds difference in extraction time: way too big. The ARCO is much tighter and I feel like I’m able to adjust one notch and get the extraction to adjust by approximately a second. I’m pretty thorough in my shot preparation (using my free six year old homemade WDT tool!), so I’m confident in my adjustability assessment here.
On the filter side, you’re covered in terms of grind size adjustability, but just keep in mind that for a big, bouldery, classic style french press, you might find a bit of uniformity issues.
When it comes to swapping between brew methods often, there’s one other piece of information that I’d thoroughly recommend reading regarding the concept of “backlash” in a threaded system. Peter from Goat Story does an incredible job of teaching this concept on the home-barista forum and this will help you keep consistency when switching between grind sizes. (Fun fact: the person who asked Peter that question is me!)
Functionality
I bought the ARCO 2-in-1 to use it both as a travel grinder and an electric grinder at home, so when I first heard of this multi-modal concept, it really grabbed my attention. We like to camp a fair amount and I enjoy bringing coffee gear with me (provided we aren’t hiking for days on end), so knowing I could have a great cup of coffee before a day of climbing or hiking is really enticing to me.
It’s a functional piece of coffee gear and there still aren’t a lot of grinders trying to fill this niche. I think there’s also valid reason not to: most people just buy multiple grinders to facilitate their home and abroad coffee habits. That being said, if you’re wanting one grinder that does both of these things, and does them well, then you definitely should be putting the ARCO on your shortlist of grinders.
Support
When I had an issue (we’ll cover that below), the support team was outstanding. For other users with issues on the Kickstarter comments, the consensus is that the Goat Story team are quick, helpful, and able to resolve the issues brought up. One aspect I also loved during the development of the product was that the senior engineer, Peter, was super active on my favourite forum in the world, home-barista.com, to answer a HUGE amount of questions, even getting into the technical nitty-gritty to help potential buyers make an informed decision.
What’s ok about the ARCO 2-in-1?
Grind quality for pourover
- A bit muddled, not comparable to a flat burr, but for a conical it’s still able to get some very good flavours, nice complexity, and good sweetness.
- Nice body and texture.
While espresso grinding can be a bit forgiving in terms of providing the drinker a range of flavours and textures, the ARCO isn’t amazing at grinding for distinctive, clear filter brews. Having used it for a long time with my V60 and Aeropress, I found that I was getting flavourful coffee but it was always a bit tough to highlight tasting notes that were so pronounced when smelling from the bag, yet seemed to be blended away when brewed.
When I upgraded to the Fellow Ode Gen 2 for filter, it was pretty much a paradigm shift in terms of flavour clarity, but this is what the Ode is aiming for. Comparing them as apples to apples isn’t fair, but for someone committed to only filter brewing at home with electricity, then I would consider your budget and decide if going for a dedicated flat burr filter grinder might be the better option in getting the most out of your coffee.
Routine
The RTD (ross droplet technique) is recommended. There are quite a few cavities in the burr mount, which can result in grinds getting caught in there, so I still find myself tapping the grinder with the side of my hand on the grinder itself after grinding to ensure that there’s no grinds remaining from static cling. I don’t love that I need to do that, especially given the way the grinder is mounted to the motorised base (I worry I’m going to warp something at the connection point between the two parts). I’m not hitting it hard, but it’s just not something I love about the workflow. That being said, it’s been 2 years (of almost daily usage) and still no issues.
It’s happened before that I will start the grinder, pour the beans in quickly, and the inside shape of the grinder body will cause a blockage, meaning no beans find their way to the burrs. The inside of the ARCO is quite crowded, given that it’s essentially one piece of steel, and the burr entry path is narrow. The solution to this is to pour just a tiny bit slower. Since I’ve had the issue twice, it hasn’t happened again due to me being careful with the pouring of the beans.
Motor power for espresso grinding
So fairly often when grinding for espresso, there’s a smell from the motor. Whether or not this is due to strain, the gears, some other mechanical issues; I couldn’t tell you. But what I can tell you is that the smell dissipates after a few seconds, and the beans come out fluffy and lovely.
During the grinding, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a little bit nervous about the motor. I vaguely remember a video Goat Story shared during the design phase that showed a LOT of very light beans being ground to showcase the durability of the grinder motor, but for me, that smell is prominent and doesn’t give me a lot of confidence. So far so good, but again, I’m only using mine every other day for espresso, so it’s not my daily driver. I think it’s also valuable to share some commentary on home-barista.com from Peter (senior engineer from Goat Story) when it comes to the duty cycles for this grinder:
“Overheating is not an issue… this is not a comercial (sic) grinder and is not meant for continuous use… we intend you to grind up to 6 espresso single shots in 20 minutes…
The motor… has a self-resetting thermal fuse that will keep it from getting damaged…
In powered mode, the grinder spins at about 350 RPM.”
I checked back in on the Kickstarter for the ARCO grinder and there’s actually some chatter of gears being stripped and one user even mentioning their grinder “finally gave up”. More on that below…
Manufacturing QA (probably resolved by now!)
Please note that this one may be unique to me.
On the day my ARCO arrived, I unboxed everything, marvelling at the contours, it’s form, it’s modularity; and promptly had the grinder and the manual grinding handle in my hands. As I went to slot the handle onto the top of the grinder… it simply didn’t fit. It sort of fit, but something was definitely wrong.
I took the handle off, flipped it over to see if I was misaligning the socket, and to my surprise the hexagonal hole in the handle was completely misaligned, meaning there was zero possibility to manually grind. I wrote Goat Story a quick email with some photos to show the issue and within a few hours they had a new one on the way. The replacement landed five days later (Slovenia to Germany) and worked as expected.
Given this was early days of the product and especially on the back of a huge shipment process for the Kickstarter backers, I have to assume this has been resolved by the team a long time ago. I just wanted to share this experience, but mostly to highlight how fantastic the support team was here. Things happen, especially with new products, and as an early-backer you take this risk. What matters is how it’s resolved, and Goat Story gets top marks here.
Grind capacity
Sometimes we grind big pots of french press, and anything above approximately 40 grams is not going to fit. Definitely not a deal breaker, but the body of the ARCO can fit quite a lot of beans, but it’s limited by the size of the catch cup.
Grinder body size (as a manual grinder)
I find the ARCO a bit girthy, so it may be the case that you find it a bit hard to hold if you’ve got smaller hands. This only applies to users of the ARCO as a manual grinder. With such a chonker, I do wish it could fit more beans…
What needs improvement in the ARCO 2-in-1?
Build quality (possibly!)
As mentioned above, there’s some chatter on the Kickstarter comments that question the quality and longevity of the ARCO. Given my experience of the smell from the grinder, I can see this being a well-founded issue. Let’s be honest: there’s a lot of plastic.
Checking in on the ever helpful home-barista.com forums, there’s some interesting feedback regarding smoke. One user, bullap, mentioned the smell of smoke, even without the dock. However, upon opening it up and deep cleaning, they found that some errant coffee grounds had found their way into the belt that turns the motor, leading bullap to believe that was the source of their smoke and smell.
I will leave the “possibly” qualifier here, because it’s all very anecdotal. We’ve got sporadic reports of some potential issues, but that comes on top of a lot of grinders that are in the wild and without us knowing what the usage really is for the problematic grinders. All I can safely say is that my grinder smells when grinding for espresso and that I wouldn’t be surprised if one day the gears are stripped or something. Until then, I’m happy with the quality, even though it’s quite plasticky.
One other thing I think can be improved is the grip rubber on the body of the grinder. When using it as a manual grinder, the rubber sheath on the outside is good for providing grip, but it feels like an afterthought and it also can slip a tiny bit. I find myself pushing it down the body of the grinder before starting most manual grinds to get the rubber grip into place properly. In all fairness, there’s not many grinders that do this well, but one I do love is the Timemore C2, which has a knurled pattern on the body, greatly improving grip.
Noise
If you’re here, this is most likely not the first review you’ve found of the ARCO, and almost certainly noise was one of the main points brought up. Let’s be honest: it’s noisy. As someone who was using only manual coffee grinders for many years, this was a bit of a shock. Waking up to the ARCO screaming as it smashes through your beans is one way to get your day started, but I’d rather just stick to the caffeine.
LOUDNESS WARNING! Please turn your volume down if on headphones.
Here’s some recordings to get an idea of what it sounds like:
I think for the form factor there’s probably not a lot that can be done. It would be nice, sure, but I get if there’s nowhere to go from there when it comes to reducing the noise. It’s just so damn screechy.
I recently picked up a Fellow Ode Gen 2 and the noise level reduction is pretty unreal, but again, it’s not apples to apples here: the Ode has 64mm flat burrs and in a significantly beefier housing. That being said, I don’t have to brace myself for aural impact after I start grinding on the Ode in the morning and that pretty much pays for itself.
Final thoughts on the ARCO 2-in-1
I like my ARCO, I really do. It’s been a very serviceable grinder for multiple brew methods for me, all while taking up a small footprint and offering me the chance for great coffee while travelling. It’s easy to use, it looks great, it makes awesome espresso and gets the job done for filter.
I wish it didn’t wake me up as violently as it does some mornings when that motor noise really kicks in, and I do hope that the smell I sometimes get from the grinder after roasting either stops or at the very least doesn’t get worse. That being said, it’s got a permanent spot on my tiny little coffee bar these days and there’s not a lot of grinders at this size and this price point that can give you what the ARCO can.
I’m really happy they got through their early delays, especially during a time when international shipping was a nightmare and supply chains were completely stuck across the world. The ARCO 2-in-1 is a case of Kickstarter gone right and another feather in the cap for Goat Story, who continue to make conceptually great and slightly off the beaten path coffee-enthusiast products.
Did you pick up an ARCO? Maybe just using it as a hand grinder? Let me know what you think about it in the comments!
Thanks for stopping by, and as always, happy grinding!
If you’re into Instagram, feel free to follow along on my coffee adventures.