Is that synonymous with bad coffee?
Does this sound familiar to you? You go to a restaurant or café and want to enjoy a delicious espresso after your lunch? Or you want a café au lait or a cappuccino and end up being terribly disappointed. The coffee tastes rancid, bitter, almost undrinkable, and you regret not waiting until you got home to brew your espresso yourself.
Many say this is mainly because restaurants use fully automatic coffee machines. And these simply cannot match the perfection of a portafilter machine. But is that true? Must a fully automatic coffee machine produce bad coffee? In relation to the 16 warning signs for bad coffee in cafés and restaurants, many readers sent us a 17th warning sign: the fully automatic coffee machine. However, we are convinced that the fully automatic coffee machine has its place in the hospitality industry and that many are not fully tapping into its potential.
Misconceptions about Fully Automatic Coffee Machines
We believe that the fully automatic coffee machine is misunderstood—by cafés, roasteries, and even machine manufacturers alike. It starts with the fact that fully automatic coffee machines don't actually work fully automatically!
Sure, the automatic machine takes care of grinding, distributing, tamping, clamping, and brewing with the push of a button. But there are many aspects that don't work automatically.
Normally, coffee machines are named after their brewing method. For example, with a portafilter machine, the coffee runs through a portafilter that must be filled with coffee. Accordingly, the fully automatic machine is a so-called piston coffee machine. A piston filled with ground coffee is inserted into a brewing group where it is compressed and infused with hot water.
But the danger with this misnaming of the coffee machine is above all that the name "fully automatic" suggests that nobody needs to worry about anything. Buy an automatic machine, throw some beans in, press a button, and you can already offer coffee drinks on your menu. But it's not that simple! Buying an automatic machine is not the end of work for the restaurateur—it's actually the beginning.
What needs to be done with a fully automatic coffee machine?
A fully automatic coffee machine must be set up. You need to precisely define what drink ratio of coffee to beverage should be brewed into the cup. This drink ratio must be determined by selecting beans. Which beans does the machine work well with? Which ones taste good with which brewing recipe in the drinks? And last but not least, in addition to regular and thorough cleaning, daily quality control of every coffee drink must be performed.
The settings should ideally be done together with a trained service technician. However, service technicians usually work more on the technical side of the machine and are rarely extensively trained in coffee sensory analysis.
Another level the restaurateur must tackle: sitting down with roasters and roasteries to select beans for their fully automatic machine. Good roasteries can support them in their selection because they know their coffees well and also know which ones work well for brewing in a piston machine.
Here's also a small appeal to the roasteries. There are hospitality businesses that have justifiably chosen a fully automatic coffee machine. And we roasteries should support these businesses too! Many roasteries have given little or no attention to roasting beans for fully automatic machines. That's why the selection of coffees for fully automatic machines is very limited. That's a shame, and it's worth changing!
Criticism of fully automatic coffee machine manufacturers
A fully automatic coffee machine suitable for the hospitality industry costs several thousand euros. But when you look at the budgets of manufacturers, some large manufacturers are based in Switzerland, we have our doubts. Marketing spending exceeds the costs of machine development many times over.
Our experience with fully automatic coffee machines reflects this policy of some manufacturers. There are many innovations when it comes to the exterior. Touch displays, color LEDs and so on, to make the machines look more beautiful and futuristic. But it seems as if many companies are not particularly interested in really engaging with the food chemistry aspects of brewing processes. In comparison, the home barista sector has catapulted itself to a completely different level of quality in the same time period.
Even though it's often disheartening when you see gross errors in manufacturer brochures, for example, there are exceptions. Companies that are genuinely interested in developing fully automatic coffee machines further. And these exceptions give us confidence that things can change and we are on the path to better coffee in the hospitality industry.
The ideal world of the fully automatic coffee machine from our perspective
For us, an ideal world would look like this: An interested restaurateur sits down after purchasing a fully automatic coffee machine together with a (sensory trained) service technician and a local roaster to discuss how their coffee should taste. How strong should the espresso come through the milk, how strong should an acidity or bitterness be tasted? Together, this trio works out quality protocols for EVERY drink. This can easily take two days. Following this, the team is trained and introduced to the respective drinks. Daily, using a test protocol, the quality of each product (extraction time, temperature, taste, consistency) is monitored, preferably by a really well-trained person or the restaurateur themselves.
In such an establishment, a cappuccino and espresso from a fully automatic machine can certainly hold their own against an espresso from a portafilter machine. And thus, from our perspective, the fully automatic coffee machine really does have its place, since the staff need far less training than on a portafilter machine. And remember, a poorly extracted espresso from a truly beautiful portafilter machine still tastes awful. Better to have an espresso from a well-adjusted and constantly checked fully automatic machine.
Conclusion: The fully automatic coffee machine in the hospitality industry
If we automatically equate a fully automatic coffee machine with bad coffee, we're making it far too easy for ourselves. You can make a drinkable and even good coffee with nearly any coffee machine if you pay attention to a few parameters. Often it really comes down to whether the leading restaurateur is interested in the coffee actually tasting really good and maintaining consistent quality.
An idea for your next coffee from the fully automatic machine: Instead of avoiding the coffee with a glance at the machine and fleeing the restaurant, you might want to politely ask the staff about it. Ask where the beans come from, whether they work with local roasteries, and so on. Good restaurateurs recognize what their customers value, and we should show them what we value: good coffee!
We've been thinking that we could visit an establishment and use our old test protocol to check the coffee drinks and work out a path to good coffee together with you. If you are a restaurateur, you can HIER. apply. We would like to make an exemplary video from our visit that can help other establishments. We're looking forward to it!
