The drip coffee offer in the café: will Batch brew or dripper be better?
Batch brew coffee and why baristas love it
Who doesn't know Batch from coffee drinkers today? Oh well, you can run a café without it. Anyway, if you're still confused about the English term Batch brew, it is literally "batch brewing" or making a large batch of coffee at once.
This can be achieved by gradually dripping a quantity of water over the ground coffee. In the short version ofBatch brew, the coffee is from an automatic drip coffee machine or perhaps the familiar term, overdose.
Batch brew as a barista's best friend
Why are baristas so fond of this method of brewing coffee? Being a barista is not only about knowing the craft, but it's also a bit about the coffee art of transforming a barista's love of coffee into the perfect product. This is best seen when making coffee with intricate latte art, hand-filtered coffee or in the morning before opening time when the barista sets the recipe for the perfect espresso.
It's just that all of this takes its time. And when time isn't there, the barista's best friends are the drinks that you basically just pour into a cup. You don't want to deprive anyone of the opportunity to have filter coffee. But when you've got ten pending orders in the pipeline, more guests settling in, and a line for coffee leading all the way to the bus stop, there's not so much time for art as there is simply time for coffee. At this point, you'll be hard pressed to attend to the precise pouring of a V60 dripper. Instead, you'll rely on a quality Batch brew machine that already has litres of great coffee ready for all comers.
Alternative coffee preparation in your café
Cafés have seen a lot of changes in the style of coffee brewing throughout history. At first, coffee in a café meant brewing in a coffee pot. As the habit of drinking coffee spread around the world, so did theways in which coffee could be prepared. The early 20th century marked the arrival of theespresso machine. which became a landmark and a staple of every coffee shop. Until recently.
The espresso machine is still the centrepiece of the coffee bar. It's just that the espresso drinking style has slowly gone from being the only way to make coffee to "only" the main one. And alongside it, with the advent of three-wave cafes, options for enjoying coffee in other waysbegan to emerge . Alternative methods of coffee preparation.
This brings me to the question, "is your café concept in the current third wave (maybe fourth?) coffeestyle in line with modern coffee preparation standards?". Yes? Then drip coffee should be on your beverage menu too! The second question is what kind of drip coffee machine to choose. Whether it will be an automatic coffee machine or a manual coffee dripper aka dripper.
When to choose an automatic coffee dripper?
The decision to buy a Batch brew coffee machine for your coffee shop is based on the possibilities of using it in your coffee shop. Anautomatic dripper is a tool for consistency and quantity of coffee brewed. Therefore, it also depends mainly on the skill of the baristas and the footfall of the café. Look for a quality automatic coffeedecanter if you have one:
- a high frequency of guests during the day
- high footfall at busy times
- the need to standardise the quality of filter coffee across shifts
- you intend to use drip coffee to prepare coffee drinks
Why have a manual coffee dripper in your café
It might seem that if you have a Batch brew in your café, additional accessories for the manual preparation of filter coffee would be unnecessary. Well, yes, there may be days when a barista won't touch a dripper in a coffee shop. But still, I think that even with the Batch brew offering, manual coffee preparation should have a place on the menu.
At the point when the barista is "over his head", the knowledgeable cafe staff should inform guests that only Batch brew is now on the menu. In addition, many coffee drinkers are self-aware of the difficulty of their eventual request for a personal drip brew. And so, in solidarity, they will often order a Batch without information from the staff. However, if the café traffic eases up, guests should also be able to have a great hand-brewed filter.
The Hario V60 Dripper may not always be the best coffee dripper
I make my own coffee daily in my Hario V60. I know I can achieve great results with it. After all , there's a reason whyHario drippers are the most used method of preparing filter coffee at national and world barista championships. But it's also been my experience that ittakes a bit of practice for a new barista to get comfortable with thegooseneck pot and dripper pouring style.
It's these reasons, as well as the barista's experience and the specialty pot, that can motivate you to try a different way of making filter coffee. There are plenty of these methods, and some are more than user-friendly. TheFrench Press and Clever Dripper in particular stand out for their ease of use . The well-known plunger and strainer teapot, aka French Press, needs nothing more than hot water, such as that from a coffee machine. And then, of course, ground coffee and a certain amount of extraction time. With the Clever Dripper you still need paper filters, which make thecoffee much cleaner than with the French Press.
Batch brew vs dripper
| Advantages of Batch brew | Advantages of a dripper |
| Same quality coffee cup after cup | individual preparation tailored to the customer |
| more brewed coffee for all guests | control and adjustment in the brewing process by the barista |
| saves time and thus money | selection of coffees to be prepared according to the customer |
| Disadvantages of Batch Brew | Disadvantages of the dripper |
| sometimes the prepared coffee just doesn't sell out | demanding on the barista's time and concentration |
| aged coffee loses quality (1 - max 2 hours) | differences in quality - human error, inexperience |
As you can see, there are advantages ( and disadvantages) to both variations of filter coffee preparation in a coffee shop, Batch brew and dripper. Although I can't fault the Batch brew in a coffee shop at peak times as a barista, as a customer I would miss being able to have a manual filter. To watch the barista prepare it just for me and choose the coffee I want to make it from.
Also, from a barista's perspective, if it's just a little bit possible, making coffee by hand is fun and a showcase of my skills. It is also a way of preparing coffee in a relaxed way, where I can interact with the customer. After all, he came to the cafe primarily for the professional approach of the barista, the perfect coffee and the whole coffee experience. A manual filter simply belongs in coffee shops.