Can you imagine a workday without coffee? Neither can we. What we serve in our office kitchen can motivate employees and increase productivity. For that reason, is important to know right coffee and water equipment for your office kitchen.
As the pressure mounts, workers turn to the brew to power them through their reports, help them meet those tight deadlines, and even encourage more contributions in meetings.
But how can an office select the right coffee machine for office and water equipment? What aspects should be considered? How can facilities be made as efficient as possible? There’s a lot of commercial coffee equipment available, but no two offices are the same and neither should their outfittings be.
Ease Of Use: How to choose the right coffee and water equipment for your Office Kitchen
When quality coffee is available at work, staff members are more likely to head to the office kitchen than to the local coffee shop for their caffeine buzz. The result? Less time away from their desks.
Unless, of course, the coffee-making equipment is so complex that workers spend ages trying to change the filter, work out the settings on the grinder, and then find the right bin for disposing of the used grounds.
When it comes to coffee equipment for an office kitchen, ease of use has to be a key concern.
“Office spaces and canteens can be full of a diverse group of people with different knowledge and experience of coffee, so it’s important that equipment is accessible to all,” says Chloe Alexander, South West Training Manager at Origin Coffee Roasters, UK.
“Lots of buttons, noises and settings can be daunting to some, so brewing equipment that is straightforward to use and doesn’t require in-depth training beforehand will generally improve results and yield some delicious coffee,” she stresses.
Take the Marco JET coffee brewers: these feature an automated, intelligent grinder and are controlled through a touchscreen. If users need to amend anything, they simply flick through the menu to select the right setting.
“The Marco batch brew is so easy to set up and use,” Chloe adds. “It is mobile, really light-weight, straightforward to clean and can just be plugged into a mains socket.”
Size
Another thing to consider is how many people are in the office and how much room you have.
Looking to save space? Equipment that is designed to be unobtrusive (such as the undercounter Ecoboilers and undercounter MIX boilers) can stop small kitchens from feeling crowded.
Then there are the Marco BRU coffee brewers. These pour-and-serve machines are energy-efficient and can brew 2.2L (6–8 cups) in 3–5 minutes – enough coffee for a small team meeting.
Yet if you have a large team, you don’t want to risk going too small and having your employees spend all day in the kitchen, brewing new batches. Bigger offices may benefit from something like the Marco JET, which can brew up to 6L of coffee at a time and keep it hot for six hours.
Quality
It’s all very well investing in easy-to-use coffee equipment for the office, but if it doesn’t taste good, workers will still be running out to local coffee shops instead of slurping away at their computers.
Yes, even in the office, excellence in beverage preparation is important. So, how do you provide great office coffee while still keeping it efficient and user-friendly? By carefully selecting your equipment.
Take the Marco MIX range of hot water boilers. They are multi-temperature and precise down to the degree, meaning it is easy for workers to get the right temperature water for their beverage. Green tea tastes best brewed at cooler temperatures, as speciality tea-lovers can tell you, while coffee that’s brewed with boiling water may taste bitter. 93–96°C/200–205°F is the ideal range.
With an innovative product like the MIX, tea and coffee can all be served from the same tap and brewed at exactly the right temperature. The result is good coffee, less effort, better employee satisfaction, and greater time spent working.
Maintenance Options
There’s nothing more frustrating than coming into work to see a broken coffee machine. Coffee isn’t your main business in the office; it’s just meant to make your life easier. So, when outfitting the workplace kitchen, look for commercial coffee equipment that’s easy to clean and maintain.
Besides, as Chloe stresses, equipment that’s in better condition will make better coffee. “Maintaining equipment will enhance the quality of your coffee and this can be as easy as rinsing the flask with hot water and wiping the grounds from the filter clean after each brew,” she tells me.
Make sure employees know how to clean the equipment after use (and look for products that are easy to clean). Check that you can buy replacement filters if you need to. And know how much support your supplier will give you. At Marco, we provide how-to videos and, although our equipment rarely goes wrong, a troubleshooting guide just in case.
Office coffee: it has a reputation for being bad, but having quality beverages in the workplace can motivate employees, increase time spent in seats, and result in higher productivity. For coffee equipment that’s an investment in efficiency, consider ease of use, size, quality, and maintenance options. It’s as simple as that.
Want to find out more about our brewers, contact us.