Niche Zero grind settings.
A stepless single-dose conical grinder with famously near-zero retention, dialled on a 0–50 collar.
The chart
Starting points, not targets. Each number carries a ± 1-setting band because that is the honest resolution of this dial — land inside the band, then let taste move you.
| Brew method | Niche setting |
|---|---|
| Espresso anchor | 12 ± 1 |
| Moka pot | 16 ± 1 |
| AeroPress (short, fine) | 18 ± 1 |
| V60 / pour-over | 23 ± 1 |
| Kalita Wave | 25 ± 1 |
| Chemex / batch drip | 27 ± 1 |
| Clever / switch immersion | 31 ± 1 |
| French press anchor | 40 ± 1 |
| Cold brew | 44 ± 1 |
One setting on this grinder moves the grind by about 0.23 of a point on the 1–10 universal scale — so roughly 2 settings is the smallest change worth making between brews.
A chart gets you a starting number and then stops. Coffee Aeye quotes every recipe in Niche setting to begin with — and when you rate the brew, it tells you which way to move and how many, on this dial.
€4.29 on Google PlayWhere these numbers come from
Two anchors, and interpolation between them. Espresso and French press are the only two bands that manufacturers and community charts actually document with any consistency, so those are the fixed points: espresso at 12 and French press at 40. Everything between is a straight line drawn through them, quantised to the setting this dial actually resolves.
Absolute accuracy is not possible and this page will not claim it. Burr wear, per-unit zero points and assembly tolerances all shift where a number lands. What the two-anchor method gives you is the right shape — correct spacing between methods, correct direction of travel — which is what you need to dial in efficiently. The rest comes from calibration.
How this grinder works
The collar is stepless — the printed 0–50 numbers are reference marks on a continuous adjustment, not detents. The app quantises to whole numbers because that is what you can read off the collar and return to. You can sit between numbers; you just cannot reliably find that spot again.
Calibrating the chart to your own Niche
If the chart runs consistently coarse or fine for you, do not nudge every row. Re-anchor it:
- Find your espresso mark — the setting where a 1:2 shot in about 28 seconds actually happens on your machine. If you do not pull espresso, use the finest point where a moka pot does not choke.
- Find your French press mark — coarse enough that a four-minute steep is clean rather than muddy, and the plunger does not fight you.
- Enter both in Coffee Aeye. Replacing the two anchors corrects the zero point and the slope at once, and every method in between re-derives from your own two numbers.
This matters more on some grinders than others — it matters most anywhere the dial is stepless or the zero is set by hand.
Known quirks of the Niche
Near-zero retention is the whole point, and it changes how you dial.
What you put in comes out. There is no purge, no stale carry-over between bags, and no reason to grind a throwaway few grams when you change coffee. Single-dose weighing in gives you single-dose accuracy out.
Stepless means your reference marks are yours.
Two Niches at "20" are close but not identical, because there are no detents forcing agreement. Calibrating your own espresso and French-press marks is more valuable on this grinder than on any stepped one here.
One collar covers espresso to French press honestly.
The 63 mm conical set has a genuinely wide usable range — unusual, and the reason the anchors sit as far apart as 12 and 40.
Moving the dial when a brew tastes wrong
The chart gets you into the right neighbourhood. Taste gets you the rest of the way, and the rule is the same on every grinder here:
| What you taste | What it means | Move |
|---|---|---|
| Sour, sharp, thin, empty finish | Under-extracted | Finer |
| Bitter, drying, harsh, ashy | Over-extracted | Coarser |
| Balanced but weak | Ratio, not grind | Hold |
| Balanced but overwhelming | Ratio, not grind | Hold |
On this dial, 2–4 settings is one meaningful step. Change one thing per brew. The full method is in the V60 dial-in guide.
Coffee Aeye holds this chart for all 18 supported grinders and closes the loop on it. Rate a brew and it converts the fault you tasted into a concrete move — how many setting on your Niche, in your own dial numbers, not a vague "grind finer". Calibrate your two anchors once and every recipe in the app re-derives to your unit. Get it on Google Play — €4.29, one-time.
Convert a setting to another grinder
Settings do not transfer between grinders — click sizes, burr geometry and zero points all differ. The grinder converter maps a Niche setting onto any of the other 17 through the same universal scale this chart is built on.