If you are running or looking to run a catering
establishment and intend to serve hot drinks to your customers you
will have to consider the best way of achieving this objective.
There are three choices open to you. These are to make the
drinks by hand in the cup, use a drinks machine in the
kitchen and bring it out to the customer or have a self serve
system so that the customer can select and dispense the hot drink
themselves.
For the busy caterer a traditional espresso machine is
probably out of the question due to the time needed to prepare the
drink and the training needed to operate the machine
successfully. A fully automatic bean to cup machine with milk
frothing is an option for some establishments, but here we will
take a look at the instant drinks dispenser.
The instant drinks dispenser does have some advantages over the
bean to cup system in as much as the initial cost of the machine is
usually less and the running and servicing costs are lower
too.
Typically an instant drinks dispenser contains two or three
canisters inside the machine which are filled with instant soluble
ingredients which are mixed and sometimes whipped into a variety of
delicious hot drinks. All the caterer needs to do is
make the selection and ensure a suitably sized cup is in
place to receive the drink. Most modern drinks dispensers can
now offer different drink sizes so the customer can choose between
a small, medium or large drink.
Delicious hot drinks such as cappuccino, coffee au lait, mocha, hot
chocolate, latte as well as white and black coffee can all be made
at the touch of a single button. Most machines now have a hot
water dispense button so that beverages such as tea and herbal
infusions can be made from appropriate tea bags. It should be noted
however that most hot drink dispensers are not geared up to produce
large amounts of hot water, so it you intend to sell lots of tea
then you would be better advised to purchase a dedicated hot water
boiler to work along-side the hot drinks dispenser.
Most hot beverages can be made from just three instant ingredients.
By keeping the canisters in the machine topped up with instant
coffee, chocolate mix and cappuccino topping a wide variety of hot
beverages can be served all day long with the minimum of
fuss.
The cost of hot drink dispensers vary mainly according to how hard
they are expected to work. The more expensive machines can cope
with serving up to 1000 drink an hour at peak times, have full
audit facilities and self cleaning cycles. Smaller machines are
readily available for less demanding catering situations and this
is generally reflected in the price you are expected to pay.
As with all types of drinks machines, it always pays to choose top
quality ingredients for use in the machine, so don't go for the
cheapest coffee, whitener and chocolate. In the long run the
prospect of repeat business by serving the best quality drinks
usually pays dividends.
Click here to find out more about hot drinks
dispensers.
Written by Fenton Wayne - (Fenton Wayne is an independent
advisor in the coffee and vending trade where he has over 25
years experience. This article has been submitted to and
distributed by www.submityourarticle.com)