Concrete on the Counter: The AnZa R2, Reworked

A concrete‑shelled home machine returns with better guts and calmer handling—instant steam, pre‑infusion, and a 58 mm workflow inside a compact, hand‑cast body.

We first wrote about the concrete AnZa back in 2014—part sculpture, part appliance, and very much a conversation starter. The new R2 keeps the stance and the materials people remember: a hand‑cast concrete shell, porcelain touch points, matte‑black powder‑coated steel, and small flashes of brass. On the counter it reads like a tidy mass with a cutout for the barista’s zone—portafilter, tray, and wand gathered where your hands work. Look closer and you see the refinements: a removable glass water tank, a cooler‑to‑the‑touch steam wand, a pressure gauge that’s easy to read, and switches up top that separate hot water, brew, and steam so the sequence is obvious. The design brief never changed; the execution has.

Under the concrete, R2 focuses on the moves you feel every morning. A PID‑controlled boiler holds brew temp at 93 °C (199.4 °F) while a thermocoil picks up steam duty, so milk texturing is ready on demand. There’s pre‑infusion to bloom the puck, adjustable brew pressure (8–12 bar via the OPV) when you want to tune a roast, and a 58 mm ceramic‑handled portafilter that plays nicely with standard baskets and tampers. A three‑hole tip on the cool‑touch wand gives you predictable microfoam; a hot‑water spout handles Americanos and cleanup. The footprint stays compact—about 15.5 × 9.5 × 11.5 in—with a single‑boiler core (≈ 300 ml, 1300 W) and a 15‑bar ULKA pump. Daily use is straightforward: flip the brew switch, watch the needle settle, pull; or tap steam and go straight to milk without waiting. (Those feature additions—removable reservoir, pressure adjust, pre‑infusion, insulated wand, and the three‑switch interface—line up with what early testers have called out since the rerelease.)

What hasn’t changed is the point: an object that earns its spot on the counter and turns a routine into a small, tactile pause. The concrete is sealed, meant to age; the top plate is a heat‑tolerant solid surface you can actually work on. Region‑specific models cover 120 V or 240 V, and warranty terms are 1 year in North America and 2 years in the EU. Pricing for the AnZa R2 Concrete is $2,050 with the current pre‑order shipping window listed as January 2026. If you loved the idea a decade ago but wanted quicker steam and a more flexible workflow, this is the one to watch.