Outin Nano vs Mino Portable Espresso Makers

Nano vs Mino – Which Portable Espresso Maker is for You?

In a market seemingly overflowing with portable espresso machines, which is the right one for you, and do you need one at all? To my knowledge, Outin was the first on the market years ago, with their hugely popular Nano model. But, in the meantime they have competition from MiiCoffee, MHW-3Bomber, and many more.

They’ve even recently come out with the Mino, a slightly enhanced sophomore release from the company. But is the Mino significantly better than the Nano, and if so, where does it shine?

Let’s also ask ourselves the question, do we even need a portable espresso machine at all? Isn’t it just one more thing to keep track of? One more thing to keep charged? Can’t you get a full espresso machine for that price?

But to foreshadow, it can come in really handy, especially when you’re traveling and don’t want to pay $4 for an airport espresso.

Outin Nano – the Portable Espresso Maker that Started it All

Back in 2022 or so, Outin released the Nano – a can shaped device with a battery, a pump, a heater, and an espresso basket attachment. This device heats up water in about 4-5 minutes, pressurizes it with a vibratory pump, and pushes it through a coffee puck in the espresso basket.

I’m not even sure Outin knew how popular they’d become. They’ve sold so many of these units worldwide, because they’re small, convenient, and they actually make really good espresso – much better than you’d expect. Especially when you use the extra basket kit. But what about the coffee dose in this little guy – is it enough?

Outin Nano – the Dose, the Nespresso Pod, and the Kit

The original Nano comes with two baskets: a Nespresso pod basket (which contain about 6 grams of coffee), and a separate pressurized basket (which hold around 8 grams of coffee). To be honest, both of these coffee doses will be ok in a pinch, but they have a long ratio of about 1:4 coffee powder to drink ratio. That’s not quite strong enough for me. But, where the Nano really shines is when you buy and employ the Basket Plus Kit.

With the Upgrade Kit, you can fit up to 16 grams of finely ground coffee in a non-pressurized basket. Now we’re talking. If you put around 60ml of water in the boiler, you’ll get around 35-40 grams out, giving you around a 1:2 coffee powder to drink ratio. This is what we want for traditional medium to dark roasted coffee.

Not only do we get a well extracted espresso shot with this kit, it’s also haptically better. It comes with a nice anodized aluminum funnel, and ridged tamper. The basket itself is stainless steel and unpressurized, although it does have an aperture on it, to avoid spraying. It’s a very nice kit, especially for the price.

So is that it? Should you just get the Outin Nano and Basket Plus Kit, and be done with it, or should you consider the Outin Mino instead?

Outin Mino – Portable Espresso Maker v2

The Outin Mino is the company’s second release of a portable espresso maker, and they’ve designed it slightly differently. It’s still a high quality construction. Just feel the build of either the Nano or Mino in your hands, and you’ll appreciate the robust construction and attention to design detail.

Where the Mino differs though, is mainly is the basket. It now comes stock with around a 12-13 gram basket, instead of the previous 8 gram basket of the Nano (it still does come with a Nespresso basket, too). This 12-13 gram basket could be a good compromise for people who don’t want to shell out for the Basket Plus Kit. Nevertheless, I wish they would have made it a 16 gram basket, as the Basket Plus Kit doesn’t fit on the Mino, so you have to be satisfied with the 12-13 gram dose.

Also note that the basket on the Mino, while unpressurized, does sit in a basket holder that does in fact pressurize the extraction upon exit of its small aperture.

Anyway, besides the new basket design, the Mino is slightly shorter, which does make a difference. They accomplish this with a new espresso cup design. When stowed, the cup screws onto the machine to become much shorter. When extracting however, the Mino can sit on little ridges inside the cup, so the espresso has a volume to fill. Pretty clever.

Outin also claims that the Mino is faster, and it is just slightly faster at heating 50ml of water than the Nano, but not by much in my trials (maybe around 30 seconds).

Outin Mino vs Mino

Well, besides the basket and espresso cup differences, the designs are just so slightly different, too. The Nano has an array of display lights to show how much battery the device has, and to show the progress of heating. The Mino has reduced to one light, surrounding the power button.

Both portable espresso makers operate the same. Pour in water (I recommend 60 ml, as about 20ml will get absorbed by the coffee puck), press and hold the power button, and then it starts heating. Once the water is heated up, it gets pumped through the coffee puck until the water is gone, then it stops automatically.

Both machines also can operate without heating the water. So, if you double press the power button, you can pour in hot water from your water kettle, and the machine will go straight to pumping the water through. This does save a lot of electricity, and you can make many many espresso before having to charge again, if you use this method. The reason is, a vibratory pump only uses about 35 watts of power for let’s say 30 seconds, while a boiler needs 1200-1500 watts for 3-4 minutes, to heat water.

Tom’s Recommendation

If you’re in the market for one of these, I’d probably go for the Nano (which is cheaper), with the Basket Plus Kit, over the Mino. That is if espresso is the top priority. If size limitations are your top concern, then go for the newer Mino model.

If you’re just going to use them for Nespresso pods, I’d probably recommend the Nano, to save money.

Outin Fino

If you find that you enjoy Outin’s products, you might want to consider their portable grinder the Fino, too. It does a nice job grinding for espresso, right around number 2 on its dial. However, it can also grind coarser for pour over or other brew methods. It’s got nice haptics, and external adjustment, and it’s fun to use. Just note that it’s slow – it takes about 2 minutes to grind a 16 gram dose for espresso.

Competitors to the Nano and Mino

At the start of the article, I spoke of competitors popping up on the market. It seems that lots of companies want to jump on the bandwagon, and so there is the Eon from MiiCoffee, the Xpress 58 by MHW-3Bomber, and the iKape and Cera+, just to name a few. These do have some dosing advantages, as the Eon can do 16 gram doses in its 51mm portafilter basket, and with the Xpress 58, you can even use 58mm baskets and tools.

So would I go for one of these over the Outin Nano with Basket Plus Kit? I’m not so sure. I like that Outin are the pioneers here, who popularized portable espresso. The Xpress 58 is much more expensive, but the Cera+ and the iKape are maybe more compelling from a price point. I haven’t tried either of those myself, so I cannot yet say.

I think I’ll stick with my Nano and Mino for now.

Clean up and Drying

There is one thing people often don’t mention in reviews – the clean up process. To be totally honest, there is more work here in cleaning. In a normal espresso machine, you just knock the puck out, and maybe rinse the portafilter. With these portable machines, you have to knock or spoon the grounds out, rinse the basket well, rinse the basket holder well, and rinse the cup.

Also, don’t forget to thoroughly dry all parts! Since these devices are made to be portable, they screw back up together, limiting their exposure to air. Therefore, make sure to dry all the parts well before screwing it back together and putting it away. This will avoid water stains, and other unpleasantness.

Outin the Company

Outin is a Chinese company, meaning that they design and produce their machines in China. They are not alone in this arena, either. Other Chinese companies that produce nicely built espresso and coffee equipment include the like of Timemore, Wendougee, MHW-3Bomber, BooKoo and many more.

Conclusions

The Outin Nano and Mino are both very well built machines, that are capable of making actual espresso. They’re fun to use, small, and can save you money while traveling. Will they replace a whole espresso set up? Probably not, unless you just want an espresso once in a while. In that case, you could store one of these in the cupboard like a cup, and use it when you get the itch.

Outin also makes a nice scale, a stand for the espresso makers, and newly a milk frother, which are also nice products. They seem to be a very innovative company, and their products are nice to use.

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