With the choice and variety of office drinks
machine available today, choosing the most suitable one for your
office can be difficult. In this article we discuss the
traditional office drinks machine.
Many years ago the basic office drinks vending machine consisted
of a table top unit containing several canisters of loose dried
drinks ingredients, push buttons to select the drink and a simple
coin mechanism to enable money to be collected.
A typical arrangement for the machine of ingredient canisters or
hoppers would comprise of freeze dried coffee, powdered milk,
drinking chocolate, sugar and one other ingredient usually soup.
Tea was not really an option as the taste of instant tea was not of
sufficient quality and despite improvement this still remains the
case today.
A plastic cup was taken from a column, money inserted in the
mechanism and the cup put underneath the various selections and a
button pressed to select the ingredient required. A white coffee
for example would require a 6 stage process to produce a drink that
still had to be stirred. Coin inserted, cup taken, coffee pressed,
milk pressed, sugar pressed and lastly hot water added by pressing
the final button.
This format still forms the basis of many smaller budget office
drinks machines today. The technology has improved, the taste and
choice of the drinks is vastly superior but the concept remains the
same.
Larger automatic machines still use different ingredient hoppers,
but have incorporated the whole process into a single one button
operation that dispenses the chosen beverage into the cup at a
fixed position so there is no need for manual operation.
Generally these types of machines offer instant drinks only, so
that tea drinkers are often forced to choice an alternative. This
sort of machine is easy to restock as it is a simple matter of
refilling the various canisters inside the machine with the
appropriate product. However spillages do occur and it is important
that a daily cleaning and hygiene process is undertaken.
Modern and more expensive office vending machines can offer fresh
brew coffee and leaf tea options and serve fabulous tasting drinks.
However the complicated brew process means that cleaning and
maintenance is more involved and your service engineer will need to
call more often. Machine, drink and service costs are all higher
for fresh brew machines, so this needs to be taken into
account.
It is always best to discuss your requirements with a reputable
supplier who will advise the best solution to your office drinks
needs and suggest the most appropriate style of machine to suit
your particular office layout, taste and budget.
Click here for more information about office
drinks machines.
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)