How To Make Great Coffee At The Office - The Employer
So your employees have been nagging to no end about the lack of good quality coffee in the office. After realising that you missed last orders at the local cafe while you were pulling a late-night stint and making yourself a cup of the chicory-based coffee substitute in the canteen, you suddenly realised the error in your ways!
Not to worry, we are here to help you get your office coffee up to standard! While bean to cup machines are a great easy fix to the problem, this blog post is going to look at a couple of alternative setups that will make significantly better coffee and make your office the envy of the town!
Brew Bar
If you are looking for variety in your office coffee, or maybe you're looking for the best bang for your buck, then a brew bar is definitely the set up for you! A kettle, a grinder, some scales and a couple of coffee makers, and you will have almost all the bases covered!
Once you've got the basics covered, choose your brewer (or your selection of brewers if you want to keep the variety up) and get ready to enjoy amazing coffee at the office.
AeroPress
Iconic, virtually indestructible, easy to clean and easy to use, no other brewer on the planet has achieved the same cult following that the AeroPress has. With countless accolades and tournaments dedicated to this brewer all around the globe, no brew bar would be complete without an AeroPress.
Able to brew from 1 to 4 cups at a time (this is based on 125ml cups, and made from concentrate), you can use the AeroPress to brew for yourself or for a few colleagues.
Pour-over
Whether it is a Chemex, a Hario V60 or one of the more obscure pour-over brewers that keep popping up on the market, the pour-over is the darling brewer of third-wave coffee culture. Known for its simplicity and ability to highlight delicate and nuanced flavours in a coffee, a pour-over brewer will no-doubt keep the specialty coffee connoisseurs in the office satisfied! This is a great option for brewing a single cup, or coffee for 2 to 3 people.
Check out our range of pour-over coffee makers and accessories here.
French Press
Not everyone wants to go down the rabbit hole of the science of coffee brewing and embark on the endless pursuit of the perfect cup of coffee, and that is okay. That is why you need a classic brewer, such as the French press, that everyone loves and knows how to use. Quite simply, if you put good coffee beans in, you get a good cup of coffee out (with a little attention to detail of course)!
With a range of sizes offering everything from a single serving up to 3-4 servings at at a time, the the French press gives you lots of options.
Check out the full French press range here.
The Wild Card
With so many unique and interesting brewers on the market these days, you can't possibly have a brew bar that showcases them all, but there is definitely room for one wild card. Why not check out something unique like a siphon, a Clever Dripper or a Delter Press.
Check out all our coffee makers here.
What You Will Need
No matter which brewer(s) you end up selecting, you will need some extra accessories to complete your brew bar setup.
- A selection of coffee makers (as described above)
- A grinder
- A scale
- A kettle
- Filters
Espresso Bar
If you want no half measures in your office and you really want the best money can buy, then an espresso machine is the solution to your lack-of-caffeine problem. While it does require a bit of a learning curve (lucky for you, we have a blog post on this), an espresso machine will deliver much better coffee than any bean to cup machine will, if you know how to use it. From creamy cappuccinos and silky flat whites to espresso and americanos, an espresso machine will give you everything that your local cafe does.
From the tiny footprint of the Rancilio Silvia to the ultra-premium Slayer, and the likes of La Marzocco and Rocket filling the gaps in between, there really is an espresso machine for every office and every budget.
Check out our full range of espresso machines and grinders for the office here.
Espresso can be a complex topic and involves a bit of a learning curve. We would be happy to arrange some training with you and your staff if you do go down this route. Feel free to get in touch; we are happy to help.
What You Will Need
As with all brew methods, you will need a few bits and pieces to complete your espresso set up
- Espresso machine
- Espresso grinder
- Tamper
- Scale
- Cleaning materials
- Knock box
- Tamping mat
- Milk frothing pitchers
Batch Brew
If you are the type of person that is driven by economies of scale, and you want a coffee solution that will deliver amazing coffee, to lots of people with minimal effort, then batch brew is definitely for you! Easy to use and designed to brew up to larger volumes of coffee at once, the Technivorm Moccamaster is what keeps the staff at CCB caffeinated all day (and we go through a lot of coffee).
With batch brew, you really can experience the best of both worlds: you get delicious tasting coffee, but you still have options and variety on the table. You can have a selection of beans and brew a different coffee each day of the week.
See our full collection of Batch brewers here.
What You Will Need
Once again, a few accessories to help you measure your variables will make your batch brew top-notch.
The Beans
The last thing and probably the most important thing to remember is the coffee beans themselves. The one area where we see so many businesses with the best intention to provide great coffee to their employees go astray is with the coffee beans. Whatever method you choose to brew with, your coffee will only ever be as good as your coffee beans. If you decide you're only going to do one thing to contribute to your employees caffeination endeavours, make that one thing buying great coffee.
We work with some of Cape Town's best coffee roasting businesses. If you're looking for great coffee beans, no matter your taste preference, look no further.
Pass The Puck
As a last resort, if you are looking for some other way to get your employees to stop nagging about the coffee situation, why not send them the blog post we put together that will help them bring their own coffee into the office?
Comments
My problem with all of the methods described above is that you need a (possibly more than one) employee trained as barista who will spend a lot of time – in an office comprising more than about ten coffee drinking employees. People are at the office to work productively, not to waste time with preparing coffee drinks. I am in favour of a good bean-to-cupper capable of easily making the number of coffee drinks required in one working day, like a Jura that can be rented inclusive of regular servicing.
My tuppence worth.
Posted by Louis Fourie on June 26, 2020
Hey Louis,
I hear what you’re saying, and there’s nothing wrong with a good bean to cup machine (NB: as long as the coffee beans are good!). Admittedly, this probably isn’t the ideal solution for everyone. I think part of what inspired this blog was the whole idea of letting things take a little longer. The reality is that most cafes are closed (and could be for a while), but workers still need that 15 minute break, that little bit of downtime to clear their head and recharge and this served as what we thought was an interesting way to address that
Bearing that in mind, it doesn’t take a huge amount of time to make good coffee with most of these brewers. Maybe a slight learning curve for the first week or two. Most of these options would have a great cup and a worker back at their desk within 5 minutes!
Posted by Cape Coffee Beans on June 26, 2020