Welcome to Cafe X and let the robot arm make you coffee.

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Munchies reports that a new coffee revolution is taking place in Cafe X in San Francisco, USA. It only takes a few seconds for the robot barista to bring you a hot latte.

Cafe X, though called a cafe, is actually a small kiosk that opens in San Francisco at the end of January and will have a sister shop in Hong Kong. The robot barista, called Gordon, is a modified Mitsubishi robotic arm that served more than 400 cups of coffee on its first appearance.

The concept was conceived by 23-year-old Henry Hu, a college dropout from Hong Kong who combined his love of coffee with entrepreneurship, and Cafe X's idea was born. When he was a sophomore at Babson College in the United States, he decided to leave school, sell his car and fall into the road of starting a business. At first, he raised $10 million to $150000 to make models, as well as a $100, 000 scholarship awarded to young entrepreneurs by the foundation of Peter Tyre, one of the founders of Paypal.

He stressed that although the goal of Cafe X is efficiency, the quality of coffee will not be compromised. "if a cup of espresso should be extracted for 25 seconds, but reduce it to 8 seconds for efficiency, you will only get coffee that is hard to swallow, and that's not what we do. "he said. The startup's goal is to work with baking partners to produce high-quality coffee. Current partners include Verve Coffee, AKA Coffee, and Peet's Coffee, which has been baking beans for 50 years. Cafe X's coffee is minimalist, returning to the coffee generation before pumpkin spice lattes and sea salt caramel cappuccinos.

The current price is US $2.25 for Italian condensed or American style, US $2.75 for cappuccino, and a few other items.

So far, customized services are limited, offering three flavors of syrup of vanilla, hazelnut and caramel, as well as options of low sugar, micro sugar and polysaccharide. It is true that such specifications can make a lot of changes, but compared with the coffee shops on the market that can meet the needs of customers, the selectivity is still insufficient. Even so, the founder, Henry Hu, is very satisfied.

"We focus on presenting coffee drinks created by bean bakers and brewing them in a way that makes the coffee taste best. "from this perspective, we have fewer customized services than other coffee shops such as Starbucks," he said. But the taste of the coffee you get at Cafe X is completely true to the original intention of the baker. "

The operation mode of Cafe X is very simple, using the store's app to order online, or using a touch screen to order food on the spot, then the mobile phone message will show the waiting time, and you will receive a second notification when the drink comes out. The robot Gordon can make two drinks at a time, each of which takes about 25-55 seconds. Of course, waiting in line can also affect the speed of service. But Henry Hu believes that regular customers who order with APP can actually pick up coffee on the spot in 10-12 seconds and move on to the next trip.

If all this makes you feel a little weird, I hope a young barista says good morning at 7: 00 in the morning, and don't worry. Cafe X will have one or two "product specialists" to take care of the store, like a sommelier or an Apple Apple Genius clerk, who knows how to drink and know something about technology.

The product specialist will introduce coffee options to guests and provide tasting services, which are basically similar to the work of ordinary baristas, but without the responsibility of filling coffee.

This is because robots are highly qualified for brewing coffee, which is why Henry Hu believes that the coffee industry is well suited for the combination of services and automatic machines.

As robots gradually become a part of the catering industry, will future services need to interact with real people? If so, what value should human interaction provide? Sometimes, the emphasis on cold efficiency in the technology industry makes the development of food technology in Silicon Valley not very smooth, but the existence of Cafe X may change this situation.

"the purpose of our company is not to develop countless robots to replace manpower, but to provide a good coffee experience. "Henry Hu said.

In the past, there were ramen robots in Shanghai, and now there are robotic arm baristas in San Francisco, reminiscent of the spaceship in the movie "Interstellar passers-by." the meals are all done by machines, and even the bartender is a robot. He also has the duty of heart-to-heart talk with drinkers! As technology advances, repetitive and accurate work may gradually be replaced by machines, but as the founder of Cafe X said, even with the addition of technology, the ultimate goal is to provide a satisfactory experience. In the future, perhaps humans and machines will be responsible for providing temperature services and precise operations to bring good experience to customers. Are you optimistic about these changes? Or do you think the "waiter" industry will be completely replaced by machines?