Dying of hand coffee? Will hand-brewing coffee be replaced by automatic hand-brewing machines?

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I would like to ask: how many people go to the cafe to specially order a cup of hand-made coffee (pour-over coffee) and are interested to know the origin and flavor of the coffee? Yes, but very few, in addition to coffee lovers, more people would like to order a familiar latte, cappuccino, mocha. Does this mean that the culture of hand-made coffee has declined?

The hand coffee is dead?

At least now the foreign point of view is so. There have been foreign media reports before, as many of the leaders of the third wave of coffee, such as Stumptown, Intelligentsia and Blue Bottle, are gradually acquired by large groups, boutique coffee from minority customers to a wider consumer group, we must begin to think about how to serve consumers more efficiently, that is, to make more cups of coffee in a shorter time. And the inefficient hand-brewing coffee is getting less and less attention.

As Intelligentsia's CEO said:

Customers like baristas to make them a cup of coffee, but today it's too long to wait 5-7 minutes for a cup of exclusive coffee.

Modbar

More and more cafes simply stop selling hand-brewed coffee and focus on espresso and other drinks; some insist on selling hand-brewed coffee because of past brand effects (such as Blue Bottle); and some cafes take a compromise, with baristas choosing beans and grinding beans, but water injection is done by machines, such as the Modbar automatic hand-flushing system pictured above.

People who have experienced hand-brewing products should agree that hand-brewing coffee is indeed a difficult and cost-effective product. Imagine that during a busy weekend lunchtime, there is already a list of almost 10 drinks waiting, and suddenly a customer orders a cup of coffee, and you have to leave the coffee machine temporarily and spend about 10 minutes preparing a cup of coffee. 10 minutes is enough to prepare at least 2-3 espresso drinks.

In addition to being uncost-effective, other reasons for less attention to hand-brewed coffee include inconsistent quality (manual operation is certainly not as stable as machines) and too few baristas with relevant skills and knowledge. In addition, many people think that the visual entertainment effect of hand-made coffee is not as good as that of coffee flower-pulling.

Coffee shops in Australia or the United States and other places often use batch brewing (batch brew), that is, machines such as leakers and American machines are used to brew black coffee in large quantities to replace expensive labor.

Does it mean that what is cooked by the machine must be lost to the barista?

The answer given by Australian coffee boss Scott Rao is a blow to coffee shops:

"in the data of 1000 cups, the average batch brew score was significantly higher than the barista brewing score (pour over), not lower, and the number of delicious batch brewing (batch brew) cups was higher than that of the barista brewing (pour over)."

Of course, this data is not to deny the significance of the existence of baristas. In the same experiment, Scott Rao also showed that baristas can get about 5 points more flavor scores than batch brewing (batch brew) on extreme values.

What is the concept of flavor score of 5 points? It is probably the gap that the second place in the barista competition can not make it to the top 32.

HIROIA Samantha

Will the development trend of hand-brewing coffee be automation?

Hand-brewed coffee has two disadvantages that cannot be popular in cafes: unstable quality and long brewing time. The former depends on the ability of the barista himself, while the latter is the defect of this brewing method itself. From a commercial point of view, both of these may harm the interests of shopkeepers. However, those who position themselves as "boutique cafes" have to include hand-made coffee on the menu anyway, which is, after all, an element that highlights the third wave of boutique coffee. How to strike a balance between brand style and economic benefits? Some stores choose automatic hand coffee makers.

For example, there is now a boutique coffee brand "FISHEYE fisheye Coffee" in China, which is mainly produced by automatic hand-brewing coffee machines, but it has been favored by the capital market and announced the completion of tens of millions of yuan of A-round financing at the beginning of this year.

Last year, Taiwan launched a fully automatic hand-brewing coffee machine, iDrip, which claims to perfectly replicate the cooking techniques of many world champions, but the exact effect and market reaction remain to be studied.

In fact, the fully automatic coffee machine has existed for a long time, as long as you go to some famous fast food restaurants or hotel kitchens, the most common are convenience store coffee and McCoffee. The core idea of these machines is to "brew the most consistent flavor of coffee in the shortest possible time". The "consistent taste" here does not mean "delicious", so these large automatic coffee machines are for the public. Boutique coffee is characterized by "niche", so the automatic hand-brewing coffee machine that has become popular in recent years is niche-oriented: it is impossible to brew a lot of coffee at once, but baristas can control many parameters to bring out the best flavor of coffee beans.

Steampunk

In general, the automatic hand coffee maker has the following functions to simulate the manual brewing process:

Powder-water ratio setting: after determining the desired ratio, the machine will inject the corresponding amount of water according to the weight of the coffee powder.

Water heating and constant temperature setting: these machines can adjust the water temperature and keep it at an ideal temperature.

Water injection times and circle water injection settings: the machine can simulate manual water injection, such as the number of "water injection-stop", or even circle water injection. It is important to set the number of times of water injection, but whether the simulated circle action is also so important is of different opinions.

Formula storage: this is the key to maintaining consistent quality, no matter which barista is on duty, only need to follow the same formula.

Fuselage design: this is hardly functional, but novel and eye-catching designs can become part of the cafe style.

Marco SP9 Single

When all the settings are in place, the coffee brewed by the machine is of stable quality and tastes good. From the practitioner's point of view, there is no reason to reject the automatic machine, but customers may not think so.

Coffee is an art that takes advantage of a variety of senses: the temperature of the cup, the aroma, taste, and visual enjoyment of the coffee. Visual enjoyment can be a latte, a way and equipment for making coffee by hand, or the focus of a barista. If all the steps were left to the machine, the coffee would be a little less "human" and the difference would be as big as my mother's home-cooked food and canned food. Some people say that after the machine processes most of the steps, baristas have more time to communicate with customers. Some people don't agree with this: even if they don't make it from Amurz, how can they have so many topics to talk to customers?

It is too arbitrary to say that "hand-brewed coffee is dead". Although hand-brewed coffee is gradually declining, there are still some minority coffee players constantly trying and studying the field of hand-brewed coffee. Just like the tea ceremony, in addition to discussing the tea flavor, it also pays attention to the steps and mood, so the tea ceremony still attracts new lovers and is not eliminated. Isn't this the same as hand-brewing coffee?

How to get coffee of the same quality to make baristas more efficient, on the other hand, do not simplify the role of "barista" into a machine operator, this is a difficult problem that operators must choose. Although automatic handwashing machines have become popular, there is still a need for some manual "idiots" who do not hesitate to make a cup of coffee by hand. " "efficiency" and "ingenuity" coexist in the market, and customers have more choices, so why not do it?

Photo Source: Internet

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