I can't exactly explain what's all about it, Quentin. (Quentin was right, was it?).
The brewing-system seems to have two stages, a first one where it's french-press-like extracted, and a second one where they build a vacuum under the filter so that it works like a vacpot.
The thing is - I drank about 10 small cups of different coffees on saturday and about 5 more on sunday. They had the Bolivian CoE winner, two different Kenyans, Steve's Harrar Longberry and others on the stand. And every single cup was just plain straight-to-the-point coffee. It just worked. And the cups were so damn clean, so pronounced and all - the Harrar (as I said numerous times to everybody who didn't ask since I tasted it on sunday) was just blueberries in your face. I tried the same Kenyan - one brewed at 91°C, one at 93°C, and the difference was so amazing - I would guess at 92°C it would have been even better than 91°C. 93°C instead was just a bite of acidity on the tongue, compared to the 91°C brew, which had a very charming acidity and an overall roundness ...
Ah, I could go on raving like this forever me thinks. I don't know what makes the clover so expensive (c'mon, a PID and a mechanically up-and-down-driving metal filter can't be it). Maybe it's the programming, the big stainless steel thing or just the long time it took to develop that thing.
I can even imagine that there are other methods to brew coffee so that it tastes as good as the from the clover - I just haven't seen one yet. From now on, every brewing method for coffee that I see I just have to compare with the clover!
Damn. It was just damn fine good coffee at last! Now I need to get an aerobie with a metal filter and test that