Coffee-making machinery: the new focus on personalisation

The coffee-making machine, that icon of Italian design that can be found all over the world, is keeping up with trends and being updated all the time, picking up on the demands the trade is expressing. But just what form does innovation in this area take? “We’re moving increasingly towards the needs of consumers and baristas who are looking to personalise the cup of coffee they serve as much as possible,” says Marco Tesconi, head of marketing at La Spaziale; for this reason machines need to be able to vary the parameters for the coffee transformation process quickly and simply. One factor is the temperature at which the espresso is extracted, which, when set properly, brings out the best of each individual blend.” This is even more important now that roasters are increasingly also offering single-origin coffees alongside the traditional blended varieties. “So we need to have equipment that can operate at different temperatures depending on the group used, or even, indeed, on a dose-by-dose basis. This kind of flexibility, essential if the sector wants to keep up with market demands, can be achieved if such technology is also available on mid-range models, which are the ones most widely sold,” Tesconi adds.

Weighing scales incorporated into the machine is the innovation La Marzocco has come up with: this gives baristas greater control over the amount of coffee dispensed, and enables them to set a Brew Ratio between the amount ground and the coffee actually used, something that helps to remove inaccuracies in the roasting, dispensing and compressing processes. “Speciality coffees that use coffee machines are becoming increasingly widespread throughout the world, and we do indeed generate 95% of our sales from exports. In Italy, the existing coffee-drinking culture is still very firmly entrenched, so it takes much longer for new products to catch on. Innovation follows considerations of performance, design, ergonomics, ease of use, energy efficiency and attention to the quality of the coffee produced,” explains Giada Biondi, communications coordinator for La Marzocco.
Innovation is also a concern at Rancilio Group, which is introducing technological features that allow the barista to intervene on the temperature of the water used in a way that brings out the best in terms of aroma and flavour for each individual blend or single-origin coffee. And at Host 2015 there was no shortage of new ideas concerning the Internet of Things, with an abundance of new apps used to monitor and manage coffee-making equipment remotely and, in the super-automatic division, to use tablets as the interface with which to set the coffee-making machine, using Bluetooth technology. In this way the size and features of the user interface can be personalised to the user’s own requirements.”

Specialities are, however, still a niche market in Italy, where even young foodies and penniless students will always manage to find a euro to buy a quick cup of espresso with. Espresso is growing fast around the world and new equipment is being developed to keep pace with that growth, mostly by Italian firms. The Far East is one of the most promising areas, along with Brazil and Russia, and things might also now be about to open up in Iran, too.
Another side of the extraction process (and the equipment needed) comes from Drewry Pearson, CEO of Marco Beverage Systems: “Coffee is expanding in three main directions: convenience in home and office, in the form of coffee pods; convenience at self-service retail in the form of “bean-to-cup” machines; and single-cup speciality coffee in retail. In common is the freshness and quality of the coffee… hot or cold. The new single-cup brewer and a range of batch dose brewers that we launched at Host 2015 cater to this trend.”