To Swiss manufacturer Schaerer, automation provides two key benefits to the coffee industry: variety and accessibility. &ld undefined
quo;With traditional coffee machines, you need a lot of skill to produce a proper cup of coffee. A fully automatic machine, on the other hand, provides any user with a consistent quality cup of coffee from drink to drink, with a wide range from just one machine,” says Sam Geissbühler, Product Management at Schaerer.
These values were front and centre when Schaerer was developing the Hot & Cold system found in its Schaerer Coffee Soul fully automatic machine, which allows users to select and shift between hot and cold coffees at the touch of a button.
“Whether an iced espresso or cold cappuccino is selected, Hot & Cold enables automatic preparation of the latest popular cold beverages at the highest level of quality,” Geissbühler says.
The Coffee Soul grinds and brews hot and cold coffee in the same method, then sends it down one of two pathways depending on the beverage. Hot coffee follows a path direct to the dispense outlet, while cold coffee drinks are run through a counterflow cooler to reduce their temperature. This reduces the espresso temperature from around 90°C to 30 to 35°C.
“It’s brewed hot and served chilled. Pre-cooling the coffee means the beverage keeps its intense aromatic flavour, ice cubes will melt slower, and you get a more consistent quality,” Geissbühler says.
“The heart of this Holt & Cold system is the counterflow cooler. This is a pipe system where hot coffee flows in one direction and cold water runs in the other. The water absorbs the heat from the coffee before reaching the outlet.”
Hot & Cold is paired with Schaerer’s Best Foam system, which supplies cold milk as well as barista-standard foam in multiple consistencies.
“Best Foam is one of the most state-of-the-art fully automatic milk systems on the market and offers hot or cold milk as well as hot or cold foam,” Geissbühler says. “This means the user can customise their chilled coffee drink with different levels of milk, foam and additional syrups and flavour for even more options.”
The Coffee Soul also features connectivity to the Schaerer Coffee Link telemetry system, which provides comprehensive information on quality metrics such as extraction times and dosing. This allows operators to remotely monitor and optimise the performance of the machine. Geissbühler says this feature ensures the machine maintains its quality over time.
“The main requirement of a fully automatic coffee machine is consistency. That requires stable grinders, a proper brewing unit, and water control, all things supported and monitored by our end-to-end telemetric system,” he says.
“Operators have complete control and surveillance of the coffee machine direct from their computer.”
With a suggested output of 250 cups of coffee per day, Geissbühler says the Coffee Soul is ideal for use in coffee shops, restaurants, bars, hotels, offices, canteens, and convenience stores.
“Coffee Soul belongs anywhere you’d expect to find a good cup of coffee,” he says.
“Maximising its user friendliness was key for areas including self-service. When the consumer directly touches and interacts with the coffee machine, it requires a different approach.”
Geissbühler adds that the machine also needs to be staff friendly.
“This includes easy access to the bean hopper and milk as well as fully automatic cleaning processes. With the Coffee Soul, you can push one button, put the tablet in, and it does the rest of the work,” he says.
Geissbühler says it’s also easy to prepare different beverage options with the machine.
“One button can get you a latte, macchiato, flat white, cappuccino, Americano, or espresso,” he says. “Then you can flavour your drinks with different syrups. The range is massive.”
Geissbühler says these features – Hot & Cold in particular – has seen Schaerer’s reach expand in the Northern Hemisphere where cold coffee is growing in popularity.
“There is an especially large demand for chilled or cold milky drinks in Asia – where we actually launched this technology in 2018 – and we are seeing similar growth in the US,” he says. “These are our two biggest markets for the cold coffee technology.”
This cold coffee trend is also beginning to take hold in Europe.
“Cold coffee is still a relatively new experience for a lot of people and coffee shops in Europe,” Geissbühler says. “But it’s definitely growing in popularity and the demand is quite large.”
The Schaerer Coffee Soul and its Hot & Cold Technology will be on display to the European market at the Anuga food and beverage industry trade fair at Koelnmesse in Germany from 5 to 9 October. Schaerer will then head to Host Milano later that month to launch new technology to the global audience.
“Schaerer is known for its design-related credentials in the automatic coffee space, as well as its reliability and quality in cup,” Geissbühler says. “You can expect similar qualities from what we present at Host Milano, and of course, cold coffee will play a role.”
For more information, visit www.schaerer.com
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