Coffee machines that are full of beans

If looked after correctly, with daily cleaning and general maintenance, then a good-quality coffee machine can be the workhorse of your business

How long should a coffee machine last? The popular image of the modern espresso machine is shiny, glitzy and, in the case of the hip and cool coffee houses, something that is as long as the bar top and costs the same as a sports car.

In a busy venue, the lifespan of certain machines can be surprisingly low, and yet as a coffee trade expert once put it: "Your coffee machine is your artificial heart - if it stops, so does your beverage business."

A very experienced independent espresso machine engineer, Richard Norman of Mad About Coffee, considers that in some circumstances four years of working life is a good performance for a traditional espresso machine. Some mid-range bean-to-cup fully automatics manage only half that, but some of the top-end Swiss machines are famous for simply keeping going.

Not everyone in the catering trade knows how to keep a machine working, and yet some users have coaxed impressive lifespans out of their machines.

TRADITIONAL ESPRESSO

Business: Reeds Homestore Coffee Shop, Downham Market, Norfolk

Coffee machine: Expobar Elegance 2-group machine by Crem International

Lifespan: Seven years

The coffee shop at home-equipment store Reeds Homestore serves 250 customers a day, and its seven-year-old traditional espresso machine has been there from the beginning.

"This is one of the busiest departments in my store," says owner Jim Carlile. "When

I bought the business, I saw there wasn't anywhere else to get decent coffee and immediately identified the opportunity for an upmarket coffee house.

"I walked into Freshpac Tea and Coffee and told them I didn't want an espresso machine that had to be manned by some hairy-armed barista. They convinced me that a traditional espresso machine would give me my point of difference, and it worked from day one.

"You cannot compare coffee from an automatic machine with what we serve. We turn out very good coffee. We had a following for it from the beginning, and every year the numbers go up. We're a bit cheaper than coffee chains and our coffee is better.

"An espresso machine is an expensive piece of equipment, and it was instilled into all of us to do everything by the book and to do it properly, from wiping the steam wand after a drink to thoroughly cleaning the whole system.

"Our staff have kept it in marvellous condition, because they understand that if they care for it, it will keep running. It's now an old friend and we've never had a breakdown. The essential thing about keeping a machine going is your cleaning and maintenance regime."

There is some maintenance you or your staff can do to keep your machine in top condition, says David Russell, general manager at Crem International.

"We strongly recommend that backflushing [a relatively quick practice which involves blocking off the water to the filter basket and forcing hot water and a cleanser through the piping in order to clean out any residue] is performed in the morning and not at night because the staff are generally in a rush to get out of the door in the evening.

"Most calls about 'no water coming through' are down to blockages because the cleaning powder was not flushed out correctly the previous night. Cleaning at the start of the day's trading is always best, because when you run off a few coffees, as you should always do to bring your groups up to temperature before service starts, that helps flush the system."

A vast number of caterers damage their machine with one all-too-common mistake. "Never soak your steam arm in water overnight - it's a real recipe for disaster," warns Russell. "As the boiler cools down, vacuum may cause the fluid to be sucked back into the boiler, leading to foul-tasting coffee and expensive repair bills."

TRADITIONAL ESPRESSO

Business: Fielders Farm Shop café, Theale, Reading

Coffee machine: Iberital L'Anna 2-group espresso machine

Lifespan: Nine years

The Iberital machine at Fielders Farm Shop café serves 50 or more espressos a day and was supplied by Darren Rayner of Kingdom Coffee in Reading. He calls it "one of the best-kept machines I have ever seen. It's nine years old and it looks brand new."

The big issue in getting long life out of a machine is understanding it, he says. "Too many caterers buy cheap off the internet, but this is a dangerous thing to do. You don't get a machine from us until we've trained your staff to understand it, and then they will know the really big secrets - like how the group head filter baskets can end up like used ashtrays with a foul-tasting deposit you can scrape off with your finger. You can put the best coffee in the world through this and it will come out tasting burnt, but most catering operators are not trained to understand this. Getting to know a coffee machine is the key to making it last."

Fielders Farm Shop supervisor Matt Gubby adds another tip: "You must change your water softener regularly. The water can be very hard in our area. You may not think it will make much difference in keeping a machine going, but it does."

FULLY AUTOMATIC BEAN-TO-CUP

Business: Oxwich Bay hotel, Gower, South Wales

Coffee machine: WMF Bistro

Lifespan: Sixteen years

Those who sell traditional manual espresso machines always say that they are more reliable than fully automatic bean-to-cup. The reasoning is that a traditional machine is largely mechanical, but a fully auto involves very complicated electrics.

At the Oxwich Bay Hotel, owner Ian Williams expects to serve an average of 50,000 coffees a year, and has just installed his second WMF Bistro, having kept his first one for 16 years.

In all this time, he says, he made it absolutely clear to his staff that taking care of the machine is the secret to keeping it going and meeting the big challenge for hotel beverage service: consistent quality, even when the volume and timing of demand are unpredictable.

"We use the same machine for all our beverage service. It is available on a 24-hour basis and is used for pots of tea for breakfast, late diners in the restaurant, or wedding guests at a party.

"I suggest that contracted maintenance and servicing at least twice, sometimes three times a year for the duration of those 16 years is the most important factor. Ensuring that the machine is cleaned through every day is also a key contribution to its longevity."

A machine which keeps going, says Williams, allows a hotelier to follow a major trend in the beverage trade: the takeaway market, dominated by the high-street coffee bars. The option of providing a takeaway service for departing guests is a clear market which many hotels have failed to service.

LIQUID ROAST

One saying by espresso engineers is: "If it moves all the time, it will wear out." A radical alternative to this is a system adopted by Douwe Egberts, which is 'real' coffee prepared in an entirely different way. On the continent, it is called Cafitesse and in the UK it is referred to as Liquid Roast.

It is real coffee in concentrated form, explains marketing manager Martyn Bell.

"We roast green beans as you would normally, brew under pressure, concentrate the liquid to 10 times the volume of an espresso, and pack it in a sealed bag. The big benefit is that it doesn't come into contact with the air until it gets to the cup, so there's no deterioration."

Nor, he says, is there the same kind of 'moving part' technology as in a traditional espresso machine or even in a bean-to-cup machine.

"You don't have a grinder, which is a big mechanical saving. Our machine is more about valves, so we have a very low call-out figure compared to a bean-to-cup machine."

The result, says Bell, is a workhorse that just keeps on going: "The Norbreck Hotel in Scarborough has two Liquid Roast machines that have been in service for nine years."

HOW TO MAKE YOUR COFFEE MACHINE LAST MORE THAN 10 YEARS

Coffee has natural oils, which clog filters. What's more, the British taste is for milky coffee - and nothing blocks pipes like old milk. This is why the steam wand on an espresso machine must always be 'purged' by having steam blown through it after every single drink.

But the biggest contributor to coffee machine failure is water. The UK's water, east of a line from Exeter to Newcastle, is hard with a high mineral content, and the coffee trade has yet to solve this problem. As one barista observes: "London water wants to kill coffee machines." Descaling is an expensive business, so water filtration is the most basic precaution.

Espresso machines are also subject to the pressure-vessel regulations, and safety inspections must be carried out by approved engineers - a requirement that some beverage operators simply ignore.

"If you follow a sensible regime," says Helen Taylor of Jaguar Espresso Systems, distributor of Iberital, "we would expect our machines to have a life in excess of 10 years."