Coffee Appreciation

Just found out that we have a sizable budget available for a coffee setup at work which we have to order tomorrow lunchtime.

What's a good work setup for 500 quid-ish? I was thinking of a Sage combined machine.

Yep. Not gonna do much better than that, but............ I dunno if I'd trust colleagues with an espresso machine. Has the potential to get so messy. I hate hate hate the idea of Nespresso, but seems like something like that might be more appropriate for a work environment if people aren't all coffee experts?

Technivorm KG double jobber. I don’t know what your office is like but can you imagine trying to teach everyone how to use, clean and maintain an espresso machine? Especially a domestic one, it’ll be fucked in days.

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Yeah, unless all your colleagues don't mind the faff of dealing with an actual espresso machine, I'd be looking at a bean to cup machine. I worked at a place that had one of these and it was pretty decent, I'm sure they have a steam wand equipped variant: https://beantocupcoffee.co.uk/jura-ena-micro-1-review/

21 of these and a Porlex mini?

https://www.hario.co.uk/products/v60-craft-coffee-kit

Yep this was the setup we had at work. Nice beans and you’ll be golden (people still manage to fuck this up!)

Yep agreed with all above, an espresso machine will become a white elephant.

I thought either a grinder and filter setup or one of the semi-automatic Sage machines, but the proper bean to cup models are a decent wedge of cash, and still require attention, cleaning etc, so not great.

The Jura and Technivorm are great suggestions, will see if that or similar is available with the limited suppliers.

Fortunately the boss is a coffee snob too.

Thanks all, very helpful

I'm in exactly the same situation, my boss made me go out and buy the biggest French Press I could find this week... Now she wants an all in one machine that'll do everything, knowing my colleagues it'll be fucked in a fortnight so very keen to hear about bean to cup machines in the ~£500 category, do they even exist?

My lot have already trashed a Nespresso and an Aldi equivalent in the last twelve months...

The thing about bean to cup machines is that they will need daily maintenance too. The espresso style ones anyway.

Forum recommended (electric) grinder please?

I drink French press or filter and my grinder just crapped out.

After asking for advice on which grinder to buy here we ended up settling on a Sage Dose Control as we realised that we'd never get into home espresso enough to do it justice. Ended up spending half our budget.

We were coming from the position of using a very basic £40 delonghi burr grinder before.

The Sage has really changed our game. Virtually no fines in our grinds and fuck me you can taste it in our French press and filter brews. A vote for the Sage Dose Control here.

That’ll do. Thanks!

Hold on, you thought you’d never drink enough espresso to do it justice... bought anyway and no regerts?

I vote Wilfa Svart cos that's what I use

Nah, it's more that we really enjoy good filter and know we don't have the patience to make good espresso at home so we decided to up our filter game instead.

The Sage dose control is fine for espresso but not great. If we wanted to make espresso we'd have spent a bit more money on something more espresso suitable.

I don’t know what your office is like but can you imagine trying to teach everyone how to use, clean and maintain an espresso machine? Especially a domestic one, it’ll be fucked in days.

On this basis, I forced my new office manager to get us a Technivorm Moccamaster.

They even ordered it in company colours!

(for those who care, I work in Transport Planning - I deal with all access/people & goods movements/transport related matters & help private developpers gaining planning permission)

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Baratza Encore/Virtuoso here. Does the job perfectly. Grinds better than my fancy Kinu for filter stuff.

Jura bean to cup would've been my go-to if my colleagues liked espresso drinks, cleaning etc. is easy-ish as it's just 10 minutes hanging around the machine (filling/emptying water trays when prompted) while it cleans itself with the supplied cleaning tablets... (which you'll need to stock up on from time to time) and that can be done every friday at beer time.

If you get one of the milk-things (to be able to get one-button flat whites etc) cleaning gets tedious, you'll need to assign the office intern or someone to the machine, as the milk chamber and related "hoses" would need frequent (again, weekly does the job) and involved cleaning, with washing up liquid and running hot water.

I use a gaggia MDF. I tend to use it for filter mostly but can do espresso if need. Maybe not as good as the wilfa and others suggested but there is one for sale a few pages back:
https://www.lfgss.com/comments/15809999/

Thanks all for the helpful suggestions. Guess I shouldn't be surprised that most of recommendations are a fair bit more than I was hoping to spend.

As I only drink filter or press I tend to eyeball quantities based on the beans I'm using . I don't really feel the need for dose control. Is the step up from a £40-£60 basic burr grinder to any of the c.£150 machines recommended upthread worth it for my usage?

I'm leaning towards the Svart mainly because it's
a: a funny word
b: less money than the others

Another vote for the Svart here, fantastic value for money, no problems with it so far, and consistent enough for filter with various brew methods.

Svart + Technivorm is the perfect home combo imo

Is the step up from a £40-£60 basic burr grinder to any of the c.£150 machines recommended upthread worth it for my usage?

100%

The upgrade from a £40 Krups GVX231 to a Sage Dose Control has been a game changer.

The Dose Control grinds without creating nearly as many fines which has a huge impact on the quality of our french press and filter coffee. If I had known how much of a difference it would make I would not have bought the Krups in the first place.

Worth adding that I know fuck all about coffee, so for me to notice the improvement it really has to be a big difference.

I wanted the Wilfa but it's rarely in stock anywhere, so went for the Baratza Encore which often gets mentioned in the same breath and compared with the Wilfa.

I upgraded from a £80 Dualit (bought from ebay for £40) to the Baratza (RRP £140, I got it for ~£80) and the difference is night and day.

Getting some cheap scales to weigh your beans and water will make a massive difference also.

I upgraded from a £80 Dualit (bought from ebay for £40) to the Baratza (RRP £140, I got it for ~£80) and the difference is night and day.

Good comparison of Sage Dose Control and the Encore here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2mxKDlXwOE