Barista Equip has sourced a new machine CEO Brett Bolwell expects will help Australian venues boost their margins in the surging cold coffee category.
Margins of up to $7 – or 70 per cent – per sale. The potential to recoup ROI within two years by selling just three coffee-based drinks per day. They’re the kind of numbers that’ll turn the heads of even the most seasoned café owners.
They’re also the sort of figures that Barista Equip CEO Brett Bolwell believes are possible thanks to a new cold brew innovation that he believes can help Australian cafés harness, and even lead, the chilled beverage boom in their communities.
As the Australian distributor of some of the industry’s most well-known machine brands, it’s Brett’s job to keep watch for boundary-pushing technologies Barista Equip can bring to Australian shores. But he’s particularly excited about the Baby Hardtank and opportunities for more cafés to embrace drink diversity, create new signature beverages and boost their bottom line.
Baby Hardtank is manufactured by Polish cold coffee solutions manufacturer Hardtank, established by a trio of coffee enthusiasts wanting to help businesses of all sizes prepare “amazing cold brew in a fraction of the usual time”. The company first released its technology in 2018, and has also developed the Hardtank 20 for high volume venues requiring up to 300 litres of cold brew a day.
The Barista Equip-Hardtank partnership has been brewing for a couple of years, but with so much local interest in cold brew and Hardtank – including among high-profile specialty roasters with their own cafés – Brett feels now’s the ideal moment to unleash this technology.
At the time of writing, he had pre-sold 11 units, with enquiries also coming from a range of venues beyond cafés and roasters.
“In the last couple of years, Barista Equip has really focused on cold coffee technology, because if you look at cafés now, baristas are becoming more like mixologists. You’ve got the rise of matcha, pistachio, cold brew – all these drinks that have really taken off especially with Gen Z,” he says.
In fact, the National Coffee Association’s (NCA) 2023 annual report shows the number of people who said they drink cold brew on occasion had increased by 73% since 2019, with a further 60% increase among those who reported drinking it regularly.
“With cold coffee alone, you can do 30 to 50 different variations of that one product. In fact, you could build an entire business around it. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing; cafés now building whole brands purely on cold,” Brett adds.
The big selling point for Baby Hardtank is its ability to compress the cold brew process down to as little as 40 minutes, with minimal barista preparation time.
For a process that traditionally can take up to 24 hours, that offers significant advantages in reduced labour costs and the purity of the finished product. This is all achieved with a sleek benchtop unit occupying just 340 x 340 x 490 mm, in a clean, no fuss fashion.
Above all, Brett has discovered that despite its more efficient steeping process, it doesn’t compromise the flavours that make cold brew such a big attraction. If anything, it enhances them.
“The quality of cold brew that came out of this machine in a 40-minute brew cycle was nothing short of insane,” he says.
“We thought, this is amazing – let’s start showing people. We systematically invited everyone we knew – roasters, influencers, anyone who came through for a trial and demo. Every single person said the same thing: it was the best cold brew coffee they’d ever had.
“That’s when we knew we were onto something. We asked them, ‘What do you like about it?’ and they’d say, ‘There’s this flavour note, and that flavour note – but it’s the clarity and freshness that stand out’.
“They all said the same thing: ‘It’s a game changer’. And that’s exactly what we think too.”
The business case
The reduced labour costs per cup, and the myriad of boutique drink options, is the big opportunity Brett sees for cafés investing in Baby Hardtank.
With lengthy traditional cold brew cycles, he says the preparation time, steeping process and a messy clean down all add up to a labour-intensive process that can create a margin of $1.25 to $1.50 for a cup priced between $7.50 to $9.
Much of this is negated with Baby Hardtank that requires three minutes’ preparation time for the barista, before starting the cycle with a simple touch of an LCD touch screen. Once completed, more time is saved through automatic cleaning and sanitation modes.
Brett says one of the big trends in cold coffee is an appetite for “something a bit decadent”, with cafés elevating their drinks with cream-based toppers and cold foam.
“All of a sudden, you’ve now got a $10.50 drink with a COGS (cost of goods sold), well under $3 with labour with Baby Hardtank. And it makes for, in my opinion, a high-margin drink (around 70 per cent), while also giving you access to a whole new demographic of customers.”
A single Baby Hardtank batch has capacity for up to 350g of ground coffee and creates four to five litres of cold brew. Through multiple cycles, cafés can serve up to 300 portions per day.
He says cafés financing the machine on a rent-to-own basis would breakeven after two years selling just three cups per day.
“I don’t think there’s any cafés we deal with that couldn’t do that,” he adds.
When efficiencies are gained, the obvious question becomes: what’s the trade-off?
But Brett says Hardtank is having its cake and eating it too – a streamlined cold brew steeping process without impacting the flavour profile.
The manufacturer has developed accelerated cold extraction technology based around recirculation. That water is constantly circulated and pushed through the extraction basket meaning the coffee, tea, or infusion ingredients are constantly agitated.
It also features a unique basket design that the company says “creates an extremely clean brew” without the need for additional filtration.
“The thing I like is Hardtank has simplified the process all into one unit, with a high yield basket for the extraction,” Brett says.
“At the end of the cycle, the finished cold brew is automatically fed into a sealed five- or 10-litre keg. What I love is that the coffee never touches air at any point – there’s no risk of degradation once it’s pushed into a sealed keg with nitrous and served straight from the tap.
“It also broadens the customer appeal, because now cafés can say their cold brew is brewed on site, and that it’s brewed fresh every hour. Fresh is very big these days, no additives, no preservatives, no pasteurisation.”
New flavour dimensions
For Brett, experimentation, and the chance to create signature drinks, with Baby Hardtank is where the untapped potential lies for café owners.
One of the system’s standout features is an ability to infuse natural flavours during brewing. Users can add botanicals, sliced oranges, dried fruits, and more, to the top of the basket before sealing it in the system. By running a slightly longer cycle – around 50 minutes – the brew can take on subtle notes all derived naturally.
Cold brew style matcha and exotic teas are other possibilities for cafés, as well as negronis, espresso martinis, and infused gins and vodkas for licenced venues.
“The beauty of it is that you can experiment with different coffees and recipe settings until you reach that point where you go, wow – that’s our signature brew.”
For Brett, there’s no question about the value proposition of the chilled beverage category. Baby Hardtank represents more than an access point, but a way for cafés to create that ‘wow factor’ and a go-to venue in their communities.
These possibilities are perhaps best encapsulated by this anecdote involving a Brisbane roaster who put a premium espresso bean through the Baby Hardtank – unsure how it would perform.
“He remarked on how the flavour dimensions in this coffee far exceeded what he can taste in the espresso version,” Brett says. “He was picking up five or six flavour notes, compared to two or three.
“All of a sudden, you’re opening up a whole new flavour dimension, and new boundaries with coffee, which excites me most – and is something I think was only possible through the Baby Hardtank.”
For more information, visit baristaequip.com.au
This article appears in the December 2025 edition of BeanScene. Subscribe HERE.
