January 19th, 2017

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.

 

For further information or specific questions, please email info@ikawacoffee.com