A question - does anyone know of a supplier in the Zurich region that provides coffee machines (a proper one, something like this: https://www.cimbali.it/prodotti/macc...li/m100-attiva) under contract?

I.e. they need to come and clean it on a regular basis, refill the beans, etc...

I could check the machine in the canteen, but just to be sure, it's a commercial style machine you're looking for, not a home office job?

Correct - we have a few nespresso comercial things, and are looking for an upgrade.

We are testing something from a local company, but the machine and beans are both "not good"....

I want to provide our services team with an alternative, as otherwise I will need to bring my own machine in

It would appear to be a Rose machine.
Beans we fill ourselves, there is a lock for it but it's always open.
There's a chip card where you load coffee money in but I'm sure that could be deactivated.
They come around to maintain the machine on some sort of schedule but I've no idea what it is.

http://www.roseverpflegt.ch/

Price completely unknown.

Thanks, I had a look at their site, but they seem to only have those horrid automated things (http://www.roseverpflegt.ch/produkte...ffeemaschinen/)

I can't see a proper machine in their repertoire...

My apologies, I assumed you meant one of the automated things with a hopper on top instead of a capsule machine. Afraid I can't help any further!

Wait... you actually want a coffee-shop-style machine at work where everyone has to do their own coffees manually like a barrista... every time?

Not sure if serious.

Yes.

Our team is a bit... weird. I love it!

We have a small one, and it's been used much more than the contract-based nespresso capsule one. The downside, is I (or whoever is last in the office) cleans it at the end of the day, refills the beans, de-calcifies it, etc.

I'm after something bigger, better, and crucially - covered by a maintenance contract.

I'll give it a month or two before they get sick of it, because it is is really impractical for a workplace when sometimes you just need a quick coffee in between meetings. Spending a few minutes every time making a drink, maybe longer if you do a milk-based drink, would get annoying very quickly.

They are used to the convenience of capsules and I doubt they really understand how much effort a manual machine would be. Well, they soon will.

So far, based on coffee bean vs pod orders, the small manual machine is used MUCH more than the big, dual nespresso thing.

The machine you are indicating will not have a bean hopper (So no beans to fill), but for each shot the correct amount of freshly ground coffee will need to be added to the portafilter. This will require:

- A separate coffee grinder
- Tamping station
- a scale (to measure the correct coffee per shot)
- Someone to dial in the shot, based on the coarseness of the grind, etc

I'm not sure what machine you currently have, but the one that you indicate will require a fair amount of experience to operate. (and will need to be plumbed in). I got my first 'real' machine a couple of years ago, without the above and discovered that it was basically useless without it. The machine you indicated is a lot more complex than mine and would require even more experience

Yup and I am having trouble believing that the OP hasn't thought of all of this... I mean it's just clear that this machine will be a LOT of work including cleaning. In fact, it's about as unsuitable and unpractical for an office environment as I can imagine any coffee machine being.

Anyway looking forward to hearing the feedback when it's up and running for a couple of months.

I used to have an old professional barista machine in the office back in the days of my own office. Old equipment from an restaurant I was renovating, I got everything from the owner for free. I even skipped the water filtering part un plumbing, those machines are extremely robust and in an office you are doing less than 10% of quantities for which the machine is made.


Making a coffee is not that complicated at all, people are making too much fuss about it. You don't need a scale, you learn tampering in few tries, coarseness and timing is set by the shop, or you find it by yourself in an hour. Most of the work is cleaning. Good shots of coffee are made by people all around the word, it's not a rockets science (except for hipsters).



Here, in Switzerland we had for a long time a small Olympia espresso machine, the coffee was great, but my boss was to annoyed by coffee grinder sound. Noise of the grinder could be slightly annoying. Now we have coffee pads and the coffee is much less enjoyable

You can get all of that in one go to grind the right amount etc - from the original link:

https://www.cimbali.it/prodotti/macinadosatori

So OP would need to rent this in addition to the actual coffee machine.

That's a beautiful Cimbali. Coffee must be perfect Well, you need an additional coffee grinder, but you grind at the push of a button and even automated.

From my old office experience, people is willing to do a lot for coffee. We had an automated Saeco Royal Office SUP 015V. The machines still had a sticker of a local supplier but the contract with them ended much before I arrived.

Thus, the janitor was in charge of dekalk. Everyone in the office knew how to add water and beans, and clean the trash box. So, keeping the machine working was job between the janitor and everyone else in the office.

Making an effort, but I don't remember anyone with the attitude of I'm too busy to open a new coffee beans bag and refill the machine. No one is productive 8 hours straight. Real work makes you tired and a 10-15 min break is not a bad idea. Quick coffee between meetings? It should be an office full of managers and no one doing actual work

That's very much our attitude, also that 5 minute break while you make coffee is GREAT to allow you to speak to colleague, chat and come up with new ideas...

Ironically, on the current (home brought) setup, the grinder is quite noisy. That's part of the thought process, as I would like to move the grinder to the coffee room (currently it's in the open plan floor) along with a new, bigger machine that everyone can use beyond my specific team... but then we need someone (other than me) to clean it

We've had a few people comment on the noise of the grinder, but that type of complaint usually goes away when you show them how to use the machine and let them use it whenever they want...

EDIT:
Side note - already have a tamper, and the grinder weighs the grind for us... so no separate scale needed.

Or complain about accounting, that improves the team morale and enhances productivity.

Accounting, timesheets, weird marketing rules/color schemes/templates, etc...

Nothing brings two people together as much as a good whinge

So it seems that you have the know how and the extra bits and pieces. So, no coffee to fill and if the machine is plumbed into a filtered water source, then descaling wont be required (often)


The only daily maintenance would be backflushing, which doesn't take long and cleaning the frothing wand after each use.


So you don't need a maintenance plan.


I would still consider a slightly simpler machine though.

so, to go back to your original question, machines in coffee bars are usually run like that, you got the machine on lease and you per serving, you don't pay the machine, servicing, etc. So, I just googled it, why don't you start for example here:
https://www.vassalliag.ch/brands/la-cimbali/