Every office has a coffee machine where employees assemble to take a coffee break and refresh themselves. If you are managing an office, you will want to get the best coffee machine that meets your requirements. There are different types of coffee machines and various brands. Choosing one can be tough, though. This is why we have a guide that can help you choose the right office coffee machines.
Know your requirements
The first thing to do is to understand your requirements. You need to work out how many cups of coffee your employees would drink in a day. Apart from employees, you would have visitors to your office.
Calculate the number of cups of coffee consumed in a day. This will help you decide on the right machine. Also, decide if you need coffee in a hurry or are ready to wait. An instant coffee machine can make your coffee in less than nine seconds. If you want coffee from fresh espresso beans, you may need to wait for up to half a minute.
What options do you want to offer?
Not everyone drinks coffee. So, you may want to offer tea also. You may also want to offer hot chocolate and other options.
While working out your requirements, decide on the menu you would want to offer to your employees. This will help you select the best machine.
Decide the machine
Once your requirements are clear, you can move to the next stage. Here’s where you choose the coffee machine for your office. The following options are available for you:
- A Kettle: This is the most basic option. A kettle is a simple and cost-effective way of making coffee. It is ideal if you have only a few employees and do not need too much coffee to be made.
- Single-serve: A single-serve coffee machine is popular because it is convenient to use. They use a fresh pack to store the ground coffee. Making coffee is easy. Just insert the fresh pack, make your choice from the menu, and that’s it! Your coffee will be ready in around 40 seconds. This is the best choice for most offices unless you need your coffee in lesser time.
- Bean to cup: Bean to cup coffee machines can help you make authentic coffee. This machine uses fresh coffee beans to brew your delicious cup of coffee. Whether it is espresso, Americano, latte, or cappuccino, you can brew it through this machine. This machine needs a little more maintenance than the other ones. It takes around a minute to brew the coffee.
- Table-top brewers: A tabletop brewer is the best solution if you have many employees and visitors. This the ideal machine if your office needs a lot of coffee.
- Pod machines: Pod machines are popular at home, and now there are office machines too. It offers a lot of choices in terms of types of coffees. It is low on maintenance and simple to easy.
Calculate the costs
When you buy a coffee machine, you need to set a budget for it. Don’t forget to include the costs per cup. You need to spend money on the machine. Then there are expenses involved for each cup of coffee. For an instant, if you want fresh espresso coffee from beans, the per cup cost would be around $0.24. If you are happy with instant coffee, then the cost would be $0.12 per cup. Work out the complete costs, including maintenance costs. Then go ahead and choose the machine.
Decide on a service contract
Most coffee machine companies offer a service contract to ensure quality. This is important since a breakdown of the machine can cause chaos. Repairing a machine can be expensive. If you get into a service contract, the company will take care of the repair and even maintenance. You may need to spend a little extra, but it would be worth it.
Maintenance
Most coffee machines need a bit of maintenance. You need someone in charge of the machine who would switch it on and make sure it works. They would also restock the machine to ensure it doesn’t run out of supplies.
Options available
Some of the options available in the market that you can consider include:
- Flavia Creation 500 and Flavia Barista are good single-serve machines. You can get brews from top companies like Yorkshire Tea, Galaxy, and Mars.
- The VMF 1500, VMF 5000, Bravilor Sego, Bravilor Esprecious, and Vitro S1 are well-known bean to cup coffee machines.
- The Marco Jet E6 is a good tabletop brewer that allows you to get your coffee directly into an urn.
- The Cafitesse Excellence compact has a milk machine along with the coffee brewer.
- Office Barista offers the Flavia and Keurig pod machines for those who prefer pod coffee.
Buying a coffee machine is an investment. You can follow the guidelines in this article to get the right coffee machine for your office.