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The Espresso Culture© 2002 Brian Martell The greatest point of delineation between North Americans and Europeans is not language, but how we like our coffee. The myth that anyone living West of Iceland speaks English, drives a Chevrolet, and has steak and potatoes for Sunday dinner is rapidly being sucked into the ethnic mosaic vortex that is the reality of neo North America. Yet, the numbers still show that the way we enjoy the most popular of beverages is fresh brewed served in at least an eight ounce cup. What is interesting is that while fresh brew regular is still king, its growth is flat. The growth area in the coffee industry has been and continues to be what we call the "specialty" segment, which includes espressos, cappuccinos, lattes, flavoured coffees, and coffees of origin. While the critical mass builds to the point where it becomes commercially viable to offer these beverages through full sized vending machines, the market has been relegated to counter top machines. Among the most popular have been the Saeco, Brio and Omnimatic machines, which for the most part, use whole beans, an integrated grinder and a traditional espresso style infuser to produce the coffee liquour. Full-sized machines have offered espresso style drinks using the same sort of infuser used to make regular coffee; problem is it just doesn’t taste like an espresso, cappuccino, etc. Equally true, the counter top models that do offer real espresso-based beverages have a hard time serving a typical North American coffee that tastes good. They often come up with an “allongé” (a stretched espresso) that tastes nothing like what you would expect when choosing Café Americano. Further, the condiments used in the smaller machines do not always mirror those products used in full sized vendors. The Brio, for example, uses an almost sugarless cocoa with a freeze-dried skim milk product for the dairy applications of the drinks. Conversely, full sized machines use nondairy crèmes with traditionally sweet hot chocolate mixes. While most in the vending industry would agree that adding a new full size machine to a bank only to cater to the espresso crowd would not be economically sound, it might be worthwhile to look at a machine capable of producing both regular and espresso coffee. This would, of course, involve having two infusers in one machine so that each beverage is properly prepared. The options would be as numerous, if not more so, but with the added ability of offering real espresso beverages, that could be up sold. The key to added profitability would be keeping relative equipment costs down while increasing the sales per square foot. By introducing a machine that delivers on customer expectation a real espresso beverage while still offering traditional coffees, a collateral benefit would be keeping coffee consumption in house. As all operators look for ways of stemming the flow of coffee purchased outside the office/vending environment, this may offer the reason to the ultimate consumer for choosing the onsite coffee. Questions or comments? Reach Brian at Brian@heritage-coffee.com
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