Growing your coffee and hot drinks business with a commercial espresso machine can be a great way to provide another offering to your customers. You likely include regular maintenance of your espresso machine, thus extending its life. Yet, there are other aspects that can impact your machine’s performance.
If you are in an area where hard water is common, then you may wonder how that will impact your espresso machine and the taste of the coffee and hot drinks made at that machine. Since water makes up roughly 98% of your coffee, it is important to know how hard water can impact the taste of your hot drinks. You might consider working with a water softening equipment supplier to protect your investment. Here is what you need to know about water and the benefits of water softening.
What is in the Water?
Unless water has been distilled, then it is full of various types and amounts of substances. These are typically dissolved minerals, chemicals, and other types of sediment. In the case of hard water, these substances can do more than just influence the taste of your coffee products, they can also cause damage to your water pipes and machinery over time due to buildup.
Hot water can bring those substances to the surface, causing them to cling to pipes and tubes within your commercial or industrial machines, creating scale. If these pipes get clogged, then it could end up costing your business in repairs or the replacement of that commercial or industrial equipment.
Determining how hard your water is starts with measuring the scale-forming compounds, such as calcium, magnesium, and aluminum, as well as copper, lead, and iron. There are also other metals that might be present in the water. When that water is heated, it can lower the solubility of these metals and other chemicals, thus causing scale to build up.
Failing to take water composition into account as a business owner could end up costing you a significant amount in repairs.
The Benefits of Water Softeners
Scale from minerals, metals, and other substances is what ends up damaging your commercial and industrial hot drinks equipment, creating costs for downtime, part, and labor. After all, when your espresso machine is not working, then you are losing money and dipping into your working capital to pay for repairs. That can negatively impact your ability to grow your espresso and hot drinks business. The goal is to be proactive and put water softening or filtration systems in place as preventive measures that protect your investments.
Water softeners and water softening systems remove ions that cause the water to be hard, essentially calcium, magnesium, and iron. As a result, you can reduce the wear and tear on your machine because you reduce the amount of scale that can build up from hard water.
Potential Disadvantages
Right now, you might be thinking that having a water softener would be great for your espresso and hot drinks business. However, when it comes to brewing coffee or espresso, that answer might not be so cut and dried. After all, you may find that lowering the magnesium, which does assist with the flavor, meaning that your espresso and other hot drinks may not taste the same as it did in the past.
Water softeners remove the mineral ions and replace them with sodium ones, which could give your coffee products a higher salt content. That salt could impact the taste of your hot drinks, although it might slight enough that most of your customers will not notice.
Still, the overall quality of your coffee may not be significantly impacted versus the damage being done to your machine. Therefore, if your hard water is causing damage to pipes and you have already paid for multiple repairs, then a water softener system might be the right option for your business.
Another option to address your hard water is a water filtration system by working with a water softening equipment supplier, who can also assist you with water filtration options. Contact our experienced and knowledgeable team today, who can help you to determine the best water softening system options for your hot drinks business.
Headquartered in Vista, California, NCB Sales is your beverage equipment repair specialists servicing San Diego, Orange County, Temecula, and Hemet. Since 1986, we’ve been repairing various beverage equipment, including coffee, espresso, soda fountain, Granita, juice, water filtration, and more, working on well-known brands in the industry.