Small Hotels - How to improve coffee quality in a tough environment

It's really tough delivering good consistent coffee in a hotel that has anywhere between 40 and 60 rooms. If you're in Jersey and probably for that matter anywhere in the UK which relies on tourists for the bulk of their business, most guests are on half board, which means that you shift a lot of coffee at breakfast time, but after that only the odd cup or two for the rest of the day.

The result is that in your kitchen you will have what is known in the trade as a "bulk brew" coffee machine which will hold at a minimum 5 litres of coffee, which is the equivalent of 40 to 50 cups. If you've got a full hotel therefore you're probably going to need to make up two batches of 5 litres of coffee to accommodate the assumed demand, and here is where your problems begin.

In the first instance, the breakfast staff are going to want to get the coffee ready early, simply put it's another job that can be done and forgotton about. Niceties such as making coffee some 10 minutes before the first guest appears go out of the window in the real world, where staff numbers are cut to the bone.

So by the time the first guest shows up, the coffee has been brewed probably for around 1/2 an hour. This isn't a problem - yet! The problem is with the guests who show up not unreasonably a little later (after all they are on holiday!), say a whole hour after the first guests. By now said coffee has been brewed for 1 1/2 hours and yes you've guessed it, now you do have a problem.

That wonderful brew the first guests drank, is now turning dark and bitter, and may even start tasting a little burnt. The problem is that the longer heat is applied to coffee, the more water evaporates, the stronger the brew becomes and the whole chemistry of the coffee starts to change.

The solution - Well why not stagger coffee production? Maybe buy two sizes of coffee pouches from your coffee supplier, one that will make just 2 litres of liquid, and another that makes a full 5 litres. This will allow the staff to make up a smaller quantity of coffee for the first brew of the morning.

If this isn't possible, then don't make up two containers of coffee in the first instance, wait for one to start getting used, and then look to make up the next container.

The most drastic action is to put a timer by the coffee brewer. Once a container of coffee has been made up, start the timer. Set it so that an alarm sounds after 45 minutes. Any coffee left gets thrown away and a fresh brew is made.

This last suggestion may be wishful thinking on my part, however it does tend to focus the mind at management level and helps to better organise coffee production.

After breakfast any coffee left should either be put to one side for members of staff, or it should be thrown out. Please do not leave the remnants of breakfast coffee in the brewer. In the first instance it will tempt a member of staff to give it to a customer who might be demanding a cup of coffee mid-morning and secondly all that coffee is doing is coating the container with a bitter layer of stewed coffee. What chance will the next batch of coffee have?

So we've got the breakfast coffee under control, now what do we do about the rest of the day?

Well there are a couple of things -

You might have an espresso coffee machine behind the bar, why not make one off coffees from here. My experience is that these machines are hugely under utilised in this environment. This in turn causes another problem, namely stale coffee beans.

So why not help improve the turnover of coffee beans by ensuring that any coffee sold to a guest during the day comes from this espresso machine. As a side note, if volume through your espresso machine is a problem, then you should consider using "pods" (please see my previous blogs on this matter), here you know the coffee will be reasonably fresh, as the sachet will only be opened upon a request for coffee.

An alternative idea is to use Cafetieres (French press) for all periods after breakfast. It is possible to use the filter coffee you use in your bulk brew coffee machine in these coffee makers, just ensure that when a sachet of bulk brew coffee is opened it is stored in an air-tight container and is used up within 4 or 5 days maximum (sorry purists!).

Again the coffee is made to order which means that your guest has every chance of getting a decent cup of coffee.

As a coffee roaster I would say it's about respecting the coffee. It's also about staff training, and having proceedures in place that ensure that when new staff are hired, coffee training is simply not left as an afterthought.

Everyone knows how food should be prepared and handled, so why not coffee?

Here's to better coffee!