Long and Short Coffee: How Long Does Each Drink Take?

How long is a piece of string? Because this question could have a literal array of a thousand possible answers, we’ve done a quick office experiment on our Coffee Machines. The pleasure was really ours; each experiment needs it’s guinea pig, and a Coffee Tasting guinea pig is the best type you can be. We review, below, the average time it takes to brew your favourite hot drinks by each machine.

Instant Vending Machine

Already posed to be the best option for larger coffee requirements, with a lockable door to prevent ingredient over-usage and all your favourite drink options at the touch of a button, you’ll be glad to know you can make your Espresso, Coffee, Cappuccino, Hot Chocolate and dispense your hot water for your tea all in 9 seconds. That’s some good going and a great turnaround time for busy, demanding environments.

Bean Vending Machines

While we already know the Instant Vending Machine holds the advantage of not having to pre-grind the coffee beans before infusing and dispensing your drink, considering the higher quality taste you can expect from a Bean Vending Machine means you’ll have to wait a few seconds longer. 10 extra seconds to be precise – Bean Vending can dispense your essentials, such as Cappuccino or Espresso in 19 seconds.

Automatic Coffee Machine and Jura Bean-to-Cup Coffee Machines

You’ll notice the gradual increase in time taken to produce your coffee with the increase of quality you can expect. It’s directly proportional and makes perfect sense – “all good things take time” – yes? A Jura Bean-to-Cup Coffee Machine and an Automatic Bean-to-Cup Coffee Machine take, on average, 35 seconds to make a regular coffee and up to 45 seconds for Cappuccino’s. Let’s remember that milk frothing, grinding, brewing and dispensing need to take place – and in my books, 45 seconds is still a tiny amount of time tot wait for a Cappuccino to be made right before your eyes.

Filter Coffee Machines

Now this is a bit of a tricky metric to try determine, because we work by pot-fulls in a filter coffee machine. However, considering that commercial filter coffee machines have two heating plates – you can brew a pot and have it idle while you brew your second pot. You can yield four full 250ml cups per pot, and it takes 4 minutes to brew each pot. This works out roughly to a minute per cup of coffee. It may take a bit longer than the rest, but this can be explained by the fact filter coffee machines use a gravitational drip system and have no assistance in water pressure brewing the coffee. However, factoring in the economical benefit you get from a filter coffee machine, it’s worth the wait.

Capsule Coffee Machine

Although this ranks last on our recommended office usage list, it’s still nice to know your average brewing time for each machine. In it’s ideal home setting, time shouldn’t be as much of an issue as it would in an office, but the average capsule machine take between 45 seconds and 60 seconds to produce your cuppa, from adding your capsule to brewing.

Although this may seem like simply an interesting read, consider the impact it might have on your team’s productivity levels. Of course a minute to make a cup of coffee is normal (and would definitely take longer and cost more if using the traditional kettle method) – wouldn’t your work force be happier and more productive if they could have more variety in less than a third of the time they’re currently taking just to make their coffee?

I’m sure they would. And happy teams make happy managers 🙂