Office coffee machine

babybuilder

Hi, I'm looking for some advice re: a coffee machine for a medium sized business employing around 50 people. Not all are coffee drinkers, maybe around 10-15 and that number may increase with the introduction of a new machine. Most of the coffee drinkers drink instant coffee. There is a Tassimo machine which is used by me and one or two others.
We have a budget of €400-€500. The main considerations are
1. Speed - At 11.00 and 1.00 there is normally a queue to get tea and coffee, so the machine would need to be able to deliver cups of coffee asap. Maybe filter coffee??
2. Easy of use ( + ease of cleaning) - we have a rota of staff who take turns to make the tea and coffee so it has to be simple to set up and use and clean
3. Reliability - I have a couple of semi-automatic espresso machines at home and i know they break down with heavy use, so I'm ruling these out from the start even the automatic versions which are way above my budget anyway. So a 3-5 yr warranty?
4. Cost of coffee/cup - I've looked at Nespresso as my wife's business has one and they cost around 36-40c per cup which is way too expensive as this works out at €180.00 per month (for 20 coffee drinkers) or €8.50 per worker.

I've been asked to research the topic and then give a recommendation. However, my instinct is to go to with a company who will provide a machine and coffee supplies so that at least if the machine developed a fault they would repair or replace it without a big fuss.

Any suggestions or your experiences would be greatly appreciated. thanks

Muahahaha

There is lots on the market OP. One brand I would suggest would be Jura, they have lots of machines that would suit your needs and they get decent reviews. As for buying a coffee machine suitable for dispensing 20-30 coffees per day one for 400-500 I would say you need to up the budget to 1000. You could get a second hand one for 500 but you dont know how it has been used before.

A cheaper option might be to buy one (or even two) Nespresso machines. Then let staff bring in their own pods for use with it. You could do this for under 400 for two machines (which would be needed if people all want coffee in a short space of time.

There are companies out there who will rent you a machine and maintain it for you. Expect this option to work out the most expensive. It will be sold to you as a monthly cost but when added up over a year it amounts to quite a lot. Obviously it is the most convenient option but you will pay over the odds for that convenience.

babybuilder

Thanks for your advice. Jura is a superb machine but not sure about maintenance and how my colleagues would look after it. The Nespresso idea I've looked into but these are expensive. I need a machine that will have the coffee ready to go at busy times. I'm looking into one of these
http://bonavitaworld.com/products/bonavita
or one of these
https://www.amazon.com/Moccamaster-10-Cup-Coffee-Brewer-Metallic/dp/B00QKKYF28
Coffee per cup ignoring cost of machine is about 12c

uncle_sam_ie

babybuilder wrote: »

Thanks for your advice. Jura is a superb machine but not sure about maintenance and how my colleagues would look after it. The Nespresso idea I've looked into but these are expensive. I need a machine that will have the coffee ready to go at busy times. I'm looking into one of these
http://bonavitaworld.com/products/bonavita
or one of these
https://www.amazon.com/Moccamaster-10-Cup-Coffee-Brewer-Metallic/dp/B00QKKYF28
Coffee per cup ignoring cost of machine is about 12c

The Technivorm Moccamaster was voted best on America's test kitchen.

babybuilder

Thanks for that
Tempted to go for that but I've read some reviews that cast some doubt on the durability of some plastic parts. However some of these can be ordered separately if they break. Which means I'm leaning towards the Bonavita as it takes up less space. Of course the machine is one thing and then there's the coffee. Is it possible to order sachets / packets of correctly ground coffee ready made to use. I don't want to go down the grinder route as it will become another variable that I can't control since I don't want to be the one having to grind to the right consistency.

maxwell smart

I know you said you don't want a Nespresso machine but we have one of the commercial ones in the office. They supplied it 'Free' (sort of).
We buy a certain number of capsules per month and they service it (up to replace it) with no questions asked and no additional charges.
This is the one we have, for 25 people and it's great.

https://www.nespresso.com/pro/ie/en/pages/gemini-220-new

They even take our used capsules away and recycle them for us when they deliver the new coffee.

It's worth checking out, we got a machine on a trial for a few days to see if it worked for us

babybuilder

maxwell smart wrote: »

I know you said you don't want a Nespresso machine but we have one of the commercial ones in the office. They supplied it 'Free' (sort of).
We buy a certain number of capsules per month and they service it (up to replace it) with no questions asked and no additional charges.
This is the one we have, for 25 people and it's great.

https://www.nespresso.com/pro/ie/en/pages/gemini-220-new

They even take our used capsules away and recycle them for us when they deliver the new coffee.

It's worth checking out, we got a machine on a trial for a few days to see if it worked for us

Thanks for that. I've sent off an email about this machine. Will need to run it past the boss. Wasnt aware of the commercial grade machines.

annetcl

Also give Java Republic a shout - they supply Jura machines to loads of companies (small, medium size and big) - supply of machine and repair (of it) is on them - just that the beans will be marked up to account for that.
Great service and highly recommended.

babybuilder

Thanks for that. I've popped off an email to them. Still veering to the filter coffee solution but if I can get the price per cup down for an automatic machine I'll go for it

Bawnmore

I'm going to paste my answer to a similar question not long ago - I know you mention you'd possibly like to stay away from automatic machines, but it's definitely worth consideration:

I was given the thumbs up to sort out a coffee machine for our office a year ago and in the end went with this guy. You'd often see it come up in Bargain Alerts - there's a few versions of it that are all pretty much the same thing and at least one always seems to be on offer at any one time. We got ours for £200 I believe.

We've an office of around 30 in total, with maybe 15-20 coffee drinkers having a few cups a day and it's been flawless. Coffee is as good as you could expect from a bean to cup, and I buy Lavazza Super Crema from Amazon in bulk whenever it's running out. We were using Discount Coffee at 1st, but found the beans were never great. We've had a few hiccups while everyone was getting used to it (coffee beans into the ground coffee shoot being the worst) but haven't had any trouble since. Worth a look for sure.

I descale it whenever the light comes on and soak the main mechanism every month or so in warm water. We've had it in our office for around 2 years, and everyone has no idea what we did before it. If looking at your criteria below, I'd say the following:

1. Speed: makes every coffee fresh - around 30 secs - 1 min per cup. Hasn't ever been a problem here.

2. Ease of Use: adjust strength/water and push a button to use. Run the auto descaling program when it tells you to to clean (takes around 30 mins in total).

3. Reliability: ours has been flawless. Only issue we've had with it is a stone in the grinder that must have been in one of the bags of coffee.

4. Cost: with 15-20 coffee drinkers drinking 2-3 cups a day each, we go through around 1kg of beans per week on average - the coffee we use is around €10 per kg, so average out around 40 per month.

babybuilder

Bawnmore wrote: »

I'm going to paste my answer to a similar question not long ago - I know you mention you'd possibly like to stay away from automatic machines, but it's definitely worth consideration:

I was given the thumbs up to sort out a coffee machine for our office a year ago and in the end went with this guy. You'd often see it come up in Bargain Alerts - there's a few versions of it that are all pretty much the same thing and at least one always seems to be on offer at any one time. We got ours for £200 I believe.

We've an office of around 30 in total, with maybe 15-20 coffee drinkers having a few cups a day and it's been flawless. Coffee is as good as you could expect from a bean to cup, and I buy Lavazza Super Crema from Amazon in bulk whenever it's running out. We were using Discount Coffee at 1st, but found the beans were never great. We've had a few hiccups while everyone was getting used to it (coffee beans into the ground coffee shoot being the worst) but haven't had any trouble since. Worth a look for sure.

I descale it whenever the light comes on and soak the main mechanism every month or so in warm water. We've had it in our office for around 2 years, and everyone has no idea what we did before it. If looking at your criteria below, I'd say the following:

1. Speed: makes every coffee fresh - around 30 secs - 1 min per cup. Hasn't ever been a problem here.

2. Ease of Use: adjust strength/water and push a button to use. Run the auto descaling program when it tells you to to clean (takes around 30 mins in total).

3. Reliability: ours has been flawless. Only issue we've had with it is a stone in the grinder that must have been in one of the bags of coffee.

4. Cost: with 15-20 coffee drinkers drinking 2-3 cups a day each, we go through around 1kg of beans per week on average - the coffee we use is around €10 per kg, so average out around 40 per month.

Thanks very much. Lots to consider there. Will try and do a spreadsheet and compare the various options. Decision time.