Brett H wrote:
OMG! That's gotta be a joke surely?? Now... Who wants an eBay bargain?
No joke... We all (on this forum) look at coffee from a point of passion, searching for better quality, different tastes etc. Many cafes and restaurants coffee is seen as a commodity. Not just the beans but the whole process. Where speed of getting the coffee out is important. Where cost is important and quality is on the bottom of concern. When I told the owner that he needs to purge the heat exchange as the water is too hot and will burn the coffee, that this is due to the design of the machine, his eyes glazed and you could tell he was thinking "this will take too much time". Grind on demand and throwing out grinds that are older than 5 minutes is a waste to them. Throwing out heated milk is a waste. Training staff will take too much time. Retraining staff that have bad habits will take time away from getting product out to the customer. Not just getting the coffee out but other food as well. Even the high price of this service probably won't concern him to the point of changing his and his staff's behaviour. If the machine has be down every 4 months for an hour to service instead of few hours (I have lent another machine, any damage he will get a charge) every two years it is cheaper. Or to spend 10 minutes every day back flushing; this equates to 120 hours over two years. Times that 120 hours by the wage he has to pay will be far less than what I or another service person would charge. Sad but it is what it is. Hopefully from our (selfish?) point view the current increase of the public desire for better coffee will push this behaviour towards better practice.
