Craft coffee at the office—for everyone
Coffee is a staple at any office. From coffee pots, to Keurigs, to cold brew, there are many ways to make coffee readily available to team members. But if you’re passionate about high quality coffee, how do you make that available without training your employees to become baristas? In other words, how do you make consistent, dialed-in shots of espresso, or repeatable, balanced pour-overs, as easy to craft as a pot of coffee?
When moving into HQ v2, this was the predicament we faced. Simply replicating a typical home or coffee shop setup wouldn’t be practical in an office environment, as the equipment would require too much training, too much time, and too much effort to use. This is particularly true for espresso. So how did we overcome this?
Super-automatic?
One of our first considerations, at least for espresso beverages, was to purchase a super-automatic espresso machine. These machines automate nearly every aspect of crafting an espresso-based beverage. That’d definitely tick the “easy” box, but unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, these machines simply cut too many corners to be worth considering. So this wasn’t the answer for us.
Our espresso setup
Instead, we chose a combination of equipment that automated what we could without cutting any corners on quality. In fact, some of the automation arguably increases quality!
Starting with the grinder, we opted for the Mahlkönig E65S GbW. Most “grind by weight” grinders are, at best, only somewhat accurate, so you end up sacrificing consistency and therefore quality. This couldn’t be further from the truth with the E65S GbW. The precision with which it can repeatedly hit a target dose within 1/10th of a gram is nothing short of amazing. And, it’s a Mahlkönig—one of the best brands on the market.
Next up: tamping. This step usually requires the most practice to perform consistently, so it’s often where the most inconsistency is introduced into the system. To tackle this, under the grinder sits a PUQpress M3. With this automatic tamper, we can ensure perfectly level tamps with consistent pressure each and every time. Plus, it’s fast—much faster than tamping manually.
Now the espresso machine itself. We opted for the Victoria Arduino E1 Prima and received one of the first shipped to North America. There are many features that set this machine apart, but on the automation front, one of the draws was its automatic purge feature. Team members don’t need to remember to purge the group head after pulling a shot! It also automatically starts and displays a shot timer. The only thing we couldn’t automate was the process of weighing the yield, which we do with an Acaia Lunar scale.
Putting these pieces together, you can go from removing the portafilter from the machine to returning it with a perfectly prepared espresso bed and starting a brew in under 15 seconds—all with virtually no practice or training.
Our pour-over setup
This setup is a little simpler, but we still wanted to reduce the time and training it’d take to brew a pour-over cup of coffee. For this, we chose the Chemex Ottomatic 2.0. Using 9 individual spouts, it pours the water using a consistent and intelligent pattern, following best practices like letting the coffee bloom. It’s made in collaboration with the folks at Marco, who make one of the best automated pour-over makers for specialty coffee shops. We paired the Ottomatic with the Mahlkönig X54 Allround grinder.
This setup still requires a bit of work to prepare the Chemex, weigh out and grind the beans, etc., but the brewing process is completely hands-off.
Staying dialed in
One of the only tasks that requires more extensive coffee knowledge is keeping the grinders dialed in. Since our team is brewing coffee at a much lower volume than a coffee shop, this isn’t too hard to stay on top of if one or more of your team members is familiar with tasting coffee. We also use a blend from Counter Culture that tends to stay reasonably consistent throughout the year, rather than using single origins.
Conclusion
Hopefully this post is useful if you’re looking to improve the coffee game at your own workplace! For us, excellent coffee is just one of many ways we’ve worked to create an ideal office environment, but it’s certainly one of our favorites.
If we seem like the kind of company you’d want to work for, check out our openings to see if we’re hiring!
