BeanScene Magazine

 In the last week of October over 130,000 people flocked to Milan, the city synonymous with style, to search for the products that might give them an edge in the competitive hospitality industry.

It’s fitting that coffee and related products featured so prominently among the 1600 exhibiting companies covering 100,000 square metres of floor space – the world’s favourite drink permeates the history and culture of the ancient and prosperous city. The nearby trading ports of Genoa and Venice were the twin hubs of industry powering the spread of coffee culture throughout Europe, ensuring that the once capital of Lombardy had a constant supply of freshly roasted Arabica beans shipped from their Muslim trading partners over the Mediterranean sea.

The Italian love of espresso coffee, often downed standing at the bar before a quick ‘ciao’ and a handful of coins for the barista, has driven innovation of espresso machine.

Lead manufacturer Brasilia, with more than 30 years in the business, have already shown their stripes in developing advanced extraction systems, such as the impressive Rosso Bullone and Sublima group head technologies. At the HOST event, far from trying to reinvent the wheel, they unveiled their latest coups in prototype machines at the recent trade fair – the JoySteam and JoyCoffee technologies, offering a new dimension of practicality and flair to the barista’s art.

The JoySteam patent uses a joystick mechanism to make controlling the machine’s steam piston easier than ever. According to Lorena Perini, Brasilia’s Export Area Manager, it also provides opportunities for the expert barista to create coffee theatrics with the elbow operation of the machine. Welcome news for Milanese baristas, who are renowned for their showmanship.

JoyCoffee offers not only improved water dose control with its colour touch screen, but also the sort of aesthetic flair which is expected in one of Europe’s most stylish cities. Pilot production of these innovations is expected in 2012.

French brand Reneka has applied its efforts to improving the functionality of the group head on their new Reneka Life series of espresso machines. In an improvement to prolong the life of the new machines and reduce maintenance costs, the group handle comes to a physical stop when inserted, as opposed to the traditional mechanism of simply stopping once pressure is applied to the group seal.

Pretty clever huh? But the real ‘wow’ factor of these intelligent designs becomes evident when the barista overdoses the group handle’s basket. The machine can actually sense when there’s too much coffee in its porta-filter and compensate by adjusting its Aroma Perfect brewing system.

Another fail-safe feature is the steam wand’s automatic purge function: a shot of steam issues from the steam piston 30 seconds after it’s been used, just in case a less experienced barista has committed the mortal sin of forgetting to clean it by hand.

The Reneka company is now owned by MacchaValley, a German manufacturer. They also produce their own automatic machines in a 100 per cent green energy manufacturing plant powered by solar and biofuel energy – proof that innovations aren’t always obvious in the cup.

The burgeoning popularity of modular espresso pod machines is quite noticeable in Italy, where coffee is near synonymous with the unadulterated espresso shot. Contrary to Australia’s ‘latte’ coffee culture many Europeans eschew milk-based varieties, so it’s not surprising that there’s such a strong market for the simple and effective pod machines. 

One beneficiary of the growing trend is Italian manufacturer Caffitaly. Established just seven years ago by former Saeco founder Sergio Zapella, the dynamic company has developed a reputation for unparalleled style and quality, achieved by working closely with coffee roasters in each export market to optimise coffee and pod production. Caffitaly’s hard work has paid off, with the company enjoying market dominance in Portugal, distributing their pod systems through supermarket chain Pingo Doce. In Australia, the company works closely with Italian-roasted Map Coffee.

Swiss manufacturer Jura Espresso rolled out a complete new commercial range of fully automatic bean-to-cup machines. Top of the range is the new stylish Giga X9. For increased cup production, the Giga X9 has three thermo blocks and three water pumps, compared to the standard one or two in most manufacturers’ models. The colour screen displays three levels of coffee recipes which can be updated via an SD card.

The Giga series includes new office machines and machines for semi-professionals. It is expected to hit Australian shores in mid-2012.

The Speciality Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE) had an active presence at HOST, carrying out coffee taste tests in a bid to revalidate similar data gathered 60 years ago. Irish barista champions, Michael McLaughlin and Rob Smith, consistently prepared five different filter coffees with different variations of coffee grind. These five coffees were presented to the public, who tasted them in a specific order. The taste testers then recorded their impressions of the different brews, with ratings ranging from “Dislike Extremely” to “Like Extremely”. 

Along with the coffee taste scores, the SCAE also collected the tasters’ demographic information, including age, gender and coffee drinking habits.

Barista Michael McLaughlin said that the control mechanisms in place are much better today than when the initial surveys were conducted. The new data will be collated and validated for a new Gold Cup standard for filter coffee.

The latest consumer data from Italy indicates that food-service patrons are increasingly valuing the overall experience offered by hospitality providers, rather than just traditional criteria like price.
Enter Danish company Scanomat with their revolutionary new brewing system TopBrewer. It essentially relocates the entire coffee brewing process from on top to under the bench, literally removing the barrier between the staff and the customer and opening up more scope for interaction.

The Scanomat TopBrewer prepares espresso coffee, hot chocolate and hot milk in almost any combination. To ensure the hygiene of the milk system Scanomat have developed a patented technology for automated cleaning of the outlet. All of the system controls are available by a touch screen built into the benchtop. Integration with an iPad is also available. Sebastion Vibe-Peterson, the son of the company’s founder, reported that TopBrewer systems were already being installed in Danish venues, though no timeframe was given for the Australian market.

HOST also includes all aspects of hospitality, not just coffee, and it is worth exploring the other exhibition halls. If the thought of preparing a Brandy Cuban, a Cosmopolitan or a Martini Dry excites you then Mixarte’s ‘Cocktail Machine’ could be just the innovation for you. The machine prepares the drinks by drawing the required spirits and mixers. Now that’s what every office needs.