It's just that there is a cost for a substitute mill? Four risks of baristas helping you grind beans

For professional baristas, please follow the coffee workshop (Wechat official account cafe_style)

A recent post on Facebook has aroused heated discussion and echoes among many people in the barista community.

The main idea of the post is that there is a barista who owns a storefront of his own. After a long period of operation, he often encounters regular customers who bring beans from others or beans bought in the store to ask for free grinding. At first, the barista thought it was a trivial matter, so he did not refuse to come. As a result, a guest once brought 5 kilograms of coffee beans and asked him to grind them.

In the spirit of serving the guests, the barista still grinds the beans for free, but the 5 kilograms of coffee beans have been ground for a really long time, and after a long time, the bean grinder is still very hot. Get the barista to start thinking about the idea of paying by users.

One day, another guest asked for a grinding agent. The barista said that he would charge 20 yuan per kilogram for grinding, but the guest said angrily, "what!" I am your member here! It costs money to grind beans? Call your head family. " . The barista said, "the boss is not here, but this is also what he asked for. You must accept it!" . The guest listened and turned away.

At the end of the article, the barista said: "it should be reasonable to pound 1 kilogram of coffee beans for more than two hours, use a hand grinder for more than half an hour, and take your 20 yuan and 40 seconds to finish."

The original post of the barista

The response of netizens

The response of netizens

So, if you are a barista, is it reasonable to charge guests for grinding? How much is appropriate? On the other hand, if you are an ordinary customer, if you ask the coffee shop to grind the coffee beans for you, you will be asked to charge for it, will you accept it?

The cost of grinding beans

"will there be a cost for grinding beans?"

Of course, grinding beans will have a cost, the most important is the wear and tear of the "knife head". The cutter head is the soul of the bean grinder, and its function is to grind the coffee beans into powder, and in the process of grinding, heat and friction will be generated, resulting in considerable wear and tear of the cutter head. Generally speaking, the cutterhead life of the Espresso bean grinder needs to be replaced for every 600lb of beans ground.

600 pounds is equivalent to 271 kilograms, and the price of a cutterhead varies according to brand and size, averaging around NT $10,000. Therefore, the cost of grinding beans per kilogram of coffee beans is about 10000 yuan / 271kg = 36.9yuan. Therefore, it is quite reasonable for the baristas in the post to charge customers a surrogate fee of 20 yuan.

However, the depreciation cost of the bean grinder itself and the possible risks of grinding beans for guests are not taken into account here.

The risk of grinding beans for guests

"is it risky to grind beans? Wouldn't it be nice to just throw the coffee beans in? " Oh, it's too far to say!

There are four major risks in grinding beans for a valet, which can not be borne by an independent coffee shop. if it is light, it will cost money to replace parts, or the whole bean grinder will be scrapped.

Risk 1: grinding to stones or sundries

Grinding stones, screws and even iron plates by a bean grinder is definitely a nightmare for baristas. It is lucky that the knife head is damaged and spent on replacement. If the bean grinder is short-circuited or other motor problems, it will cost a lot of money to replace the new bean grinder, not to mention the coffee shop will be shut down, resulting in heavy losses.

Bluemetal-coarse-granite-gravel-texture

Our own beans can be carefully picked, but it is difficult to say whether the beans outside have picked out the sundries. As long as there is a 1% chance, it is an unbearable consequence for the coffee shop.

Risk 2: spice on the body, haunted

Some companies, in order to sell ordinary coffee beans smoothly, spray chemical spices on the surface of coffee beans to make them smell delicious and attract consumers to buy them. It's hard to say how many people do this, but in modern grinding, as long as you run into it once, these spices will stick to your knife head and the whole bean grinder.

Risk 3: flavor change

Even if the guests use fine beans without spices, it will cause the flavor of the coffee to change tone. Each coffee bean has its own special flavor, and the general coffee shop will want to brew coffee with the same flavor, but if you grind other people's coffee beans with different flavors, and then grind your own beans, the flavor of the brewed coffee will be mixed and out of tune.

A barista once published the 1:1 rule that when you grind a pound of coffee beans with other flavors, you have to grind another pound of your own beans before the flavor of the t cup stabilizes again.

Risk 4: time, labor cost

Finally, there is the cost of time and manpower. While helping guests grind beans, the coffee shop is unable to produce a cup, which will lose turnover, and manpower is also needed to operate the bean grinder and increase the workload of the coffee shop staff. Once in a while, it's okay, but if someone asks for a mill every day, the store may be disturbed.

Therefore, many coffee shops will refuse to help guests grind beans, because the risk is too great, a professional commercial bean grinder, is ten thousand yuan take off, the slightest carelessness is a huge loss. I hope this article can dispel the customer's misunderstanding, the coffee shop also has a lot of difficulties.

Of course, if you buy coffee beans from a coffee shop, it is absolutely reasonable to ask the coffee shop to grind the beans for you. In addition, some supermarkets, such as Costco and Carrefour, have equipment to provide self-help grinding beans.

However, ordinary consumers are advised that it is best to grind coffee beans at home, because generally speaking, coffee powder begins to lose its flavor after 15 minutes of contact with the air, and the special flavor and aroma of coffee basically disappear after 30 minutes. Of course, earbags are the exception, but that's because the packaging uses vacuum or nitrogen filling.

If you want to make your own coffee at home, you are sincerely advised to buy your own bean grinder. At present, the price of the basic Pegasus 600N bean grinder on the market is about NT $2500. Although there is still a gap between the Pegasus 600N and the commercial bean mill, the flavor of the freshly ground bean mill is still the most perfect and irreplaceable.

In addition, if you are a barista who runs a store, you might as well set the standard of grinding and make it known to the public, so as to reduce disputes and conflicts. And if a customer questions your standards, share this article with him.