The Pineapple Manifesto: Why the M01 Hits Different

The TIMEMORE x MILLAB M01 isn’t just another hand grinder. It’s the result of questioning every tired assumption about what makes a good one.

Let’s talk burrs. Bigger burrs mean a longer grind path. A longer grind path gives you more control and tighter particle distribution. That’s the goal, right? But old-school conical burrs tried to get there by bulking up—wider burrs, fatter bodies, chunkier grips. At some point, you’re basically hand-grinding with a thermos.

So we said: forget wider—go taller. We borrowed the geometry of flat burrs, reimagined it in a conical format, and invented something entirely new: the Pineapple Burr.

Within a compact 44mm diameter, this vertically stretched burr pulls off a grind path longer than your average 64mm flat burr. It shreds. It pre-breaks. It cuts way down on fines without sacrificing control. Ultimately, most grinders force a tradeoff—clarity with no body, or body with no clarity. We said: why not both? And then we built it.

But creating a better burr means knowing what “better” actually means. So we measured.

TIMEMORE dropped over a million RMB on three German SYMPATEC QICPIC analyzers. They sound like something out of a Bond movie, but they’re absurdly good at capturing grind uniformity with surgical precision. As Daddy Hoff (you know, James Hoffmann) says: grind charts are just snapshots—how a grinder performs with one coffee, on one setting, on one day.

But here’s the thing—those snapshots matter. When you gather enough of them, patterns emerge. We used that data to link specific grind curves to specific changes in flavor: clarity, sweetness, and body. Then we chased the curves that tasted best—and built a burr that could hit them, consistently.

At the same time, the real test is still the cup. We’ve got over a hundred die-hard coffee freaks in-house, including three Q-Graders who are ruthless with feedback. Every grinder is pushed through internal cupping gauntlets before it even thinks about shipping.

We also brought in CBRC Brewers Cup Champion Yang Zou (邹旸) early in development. After blind tastings and benchmark comparisons, she was impressed enough to use the Pineapple Burr in competition. That was our green light.

When it came time to build the M01, we didn’t cut corners—we tightened them. The burr gap hits a record-setting 0.0725mm at its finest setting. Bearings are aligned like a NASA gyroscope—runout down to 3μm. Every rotation? Silky smooth.

The M01 is so hard to manufacture that our failure rate hovers just under 50%—and we’re still making it anyway.

The M01 is the sum of a decade of grinder R&D, crammed into one rebellious little unit. It breaks rules, blurs lines, and rewrites the burr playbook.

This is the Pineapple Burr. And we’re just getting started.