Ten Mile Coffee Drip Scale

Excellent Espresso Scales – The Ten Mile coffee drip scales are at the cheaper end of the market. Usually, this means something that may or may not deliver within expectations, but to quote James Hoffman: "I'm a little bit impressed." These are likeable coffee scales with several good features, although not perfect. But first, the positives. The scales are backlit with two parts to the display. The lefthand side is a timer that's activated by the start/stop button on the left, and a long press will reset it. It shows seconds and allows a timed extraction. The righthand side shows weight with a tare function. The tare function allows one to zero the weight with items already on the scale to make further measurements for incremental additions.

The scale's response to weight is rapid. This means you can place them on a drip tray, and I will get back to this later, with a glass and measure the coffee as it's extracted through the portafilter. This allows one to time a 2:1 ratio of coffee to water in a 25-35 second window. A heat pad covers the scale's surface to protect it from spillage and is removable for washing. The tray is a 126mm x 126mm platform, allowing me to place my portafilter on it to measure a coffee dose.

The scale can be adjusted for grams or ounces (or pounds, millilitres or millilitres/g) and will handle up to 3000gm of weight. It has an auto-off feature, which comes in handy when the barista gets older, and batteries ( 2 x AAA) are included.

There are, however, a few downsides that prevent it from getting that elusive five stars. The first is overall build quality. It is obvious these scales were built to a budget. It doesn't mean the build is bad, per se, but there's a lot of thin plastic, and its components seem light. It will undoubtedly last the warranty period, but I wonder about its longevity after that.

The next downside is that it's a little taller than some more expensive coffee scales. There was just enough room between the drip tray, scale, espresso glass and portafilter, as shown in my photos, for everything to work. One might be inclined to add this is also a reflection of the Gaggia Classic Pro and its lack of space between the portafilter and drip tray overall. For Gaggia users, it would mean seeking slimmer, aftermarket drip trays that exist.

Finally, spending extra on coffee scales often means BlueTooth/wi-fi connectivity. This is important if you use a prosumer espresso machine with inbuilt connectivity, like the Decent DE1PRO, that uses information from scales to provide an exact volumetric pour. At this price point, I did not expect scales to have them, and, indeed, they did not.

In summary, the Ten Mile coffee drip scales are excellent for the money, and one would have to spend much more, well over a hundred dollars, to find better. These scales are not for the super-serious hobbyist barista who spends thousands on coffee machines and grinders, but for the rest of us. That is, those who enjoy measuring doses and timing their coffee shots to get a better extraction, but are unwilling to go down the rabbit hole of diminishing returns.