Super-Automatic Machine or Coffee Extract: Which Suits a Chain?

When choosing a coffee machine for a store, a fuel station or a coffee shop chain, buyers usually compare super-automatic machines with each other. But there is a second option: coffee extract equipment, where the beans are ground and brewed not on site but at a production plant. Here is how the two approaches differ and when each one pays off.

How each approach works

A bean-to-cup super-automatic machine does everything on site: it grinds the beans, tamps them, runs water through and ejects the spent puck. Each machine is a small coffee factory.

Extract equipment receives coffee that has already been brewed — a coffee base in a sealed box. What remains on site is dosing, heating, aeration and milk. There is no grinding and no spent grounds.

Comparison

Bean-to-cup super-automaticCoffee extract (DrinkX)Taste from site to sitedepends on the beans, freshness, grind and settings of each machineone base and one recipe across the whole chainSpeeddepends on the model and number of groups30 seconds per drink, up to 100 an hourStaff workrefill beans, knock out grounds, clean, keep an eye on settingschange the coffee base boxes, daily servicingCleaningdaily, according to the model’s scheduleautomatic cleaningWaste on sitespent grounds every shiftno spent groundsCounter spacethe whole machinetap and screen, everything else under the countertopChain-wide controldepends on the modelstock levels and status online in DrinkX CloudMenudepends on the modelespresso, americano, milk drinks, cold drinks, up to 10 syrups

When beans pay off

When extract pays off

What about the taste?

The main question about extract is whether the coffee will be “real”. It will: the coffee base is brewed coffee, not a powder. In DrinkX equipment it goes through two-stage aeration, so espresso and americano have a foam, and milk drinks are made with freshly frothed milk: the AEROMILK module makes 330 ml of foam in 25 seconds.

How extract differs from instant coffee →

What chains choose

DrinkX coffee extract equipment runs in the VkusVill, Pyaterochka, Day2Day and Yandex Lavka chains. It is manufactured in Moscow and is built in under the counter or installed in a separate cabinet.

Coffee extract for business → · For retail → · For fuel stations → · Payback calculator →