Coffee Machine Lease and Rental | Bean to Cup and Traditional

Often overlooked is the quality of water that goes into our expensive commercial coffee machines. Coffee aside, water makes up the majority of most coffee beverages and we really shouldn’t overlook the importance of water filters and their function.

What does a water filter do?

Water filters perform 2 major functions. They protect your expensive coffee machine from limescale build up along with improving the taste, aroma and presentation of the finished coffee beverage.

Fundamentally, they act as a barrier between the water supply and coffee machine to protect the machine and improve the quality of the water.

Water filters are made from various filtering layers – sediment removal, bio ceramics and activated carbon to remove finest sediment, reduce the hardness of water and also remove chlorine from the water. As water is passed though the filter the carbon within captures these impurities and prevents them from getting into your coffee machine.

We get called out to many jobs whereby the customer either doesn’t have a water filter or it has been used beyond its capacity, rendering it highly ineffective to the damaging effects of limescale build-up.

The Café culture has not become an established part of British society. Delivering a very high standard of coffee is often the norm, and water quality plays a huge role in delivering top quality coffee beverages.

What is the ideal water quality for brewing coffee?

Coffee beverages can contain up to 98% water, so the water quality within your drinks will hugely affect the taste, smell and appearance of the coffee.

The ideal water for brewing coffee has no chlorine; is crystal clear; has a slight hardness to the water and a neural PH (7 on the PH scale).

Not having a water filter or not changing your filter at the recommended intervals (usually every 6 months) will increase the presence of chlorine in the water along with changing the water hardness. In terms of taste, this difference in the water chemistry means the coffee will not be extracted correctly, leaving a flat tasting coffee lacking the subtle complexities found in good coffee.

Do all coffee machines need a water filter?

One of the more common reasons we get called out to site is because of scale due to the lack of a water filter. All water contains natural minerals that build up within the internals of a coffee machine without a water filter. Even if you do not live in an area known for hard water the naturally occurring minerals and trace metals from the pipework end up in the coffee machine and over time can cause issues.