PROFILE Eversys
A Super T solution GLOBAL COFFEE REPORT TALKS TO INDUSTRY LEADERS ON WHY EVERSYS SUPER TRADITIONAL MACHINES ARE BREAKING DOWN ESTABLISHED TABOOS AND BECOMING NORMALISED IN A WORLD THAT REQUIRES GOOD QUALITY AT SCALE.
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hen 2017 World Barista Champion Dale Harris made his first encounter with the Eversys line of Super Traditional (ST) coffee machines, he admits to being “a little frightened” by their sheer productivity. “When you’re looking at shot variants that can produce 150-plus double espresso and milk drinks each and every hour, that’s an incredible amount of coffee volume from a footprint smaller than the most basic of traditional machines,” says Harris, Global Business and Product Development Manager for Hasbean and Ozone Coffee. On further inspection of the traditionally designed yet fully automatic and modularised machines, which include the Enigma, Cameo and Shotmaster range, Harris noticed their ease of use and the reduction in strenuous, labour demands compared to situations where he’d physically grind, tamp, and prepare every shot, in high volume, with a traditional equivalent. “While there is a noticeable loss of some of the satisfying tactile moments of ‘making coffee’, these are always more fun when you’re making a couple of drinks for yourself without pressure compared to the factory-like process you have to work through when managing a morning rush. Being able to produce 100 great coffees at speed and ending that rush with clean hands, a clean work station and a more relaxed composure is also a truly amazing, valid experience,” Harris says. “As you remove moments when the barista ‘crafts’ the product, the intrinsic quality of the machine has to reproduce these every time, and that means that the basic skills of tasting, recipe setting, and calibration across sites become even more critical. While lesser baristas can be used at reduced cost, the ones you have in key positions can actually be utilised more efficiently and in greater, more professional roles. We’re liberating the skill and the knowledge of the barista from being a cog in a production line to becoming a director of coffee quality, and a maître d’ of the customer experience.” Harris adds that having technology replace the physical elements of coffee making also enables more staff to engage with customers, create a sense of community and celebrate or educate them on the products being offered. I’m really interested to see how some businesses will use the technology to either bring the coffee making process closer to customers, empower them in different environments, particularly within self-service. And equally, how some venues may remove the coffee making process from within the dining room and instead focus on high quality products being delivered, in a return to a more premium table side service situation,” Harris says. “Changes in technology allow for greater flexibility, adoption sometimes in ways that can be unforeseen but that ultimately can transform and enhance our customer experiences.” For Dr Adam Carr, Founder and Director of Highpresso consulting in Australia, the movement towards more automation within the coffee industry is already transforming experiences thanks to automated tampers and milk steamers, grind-by-weight tools, and automated brew ratio control. “I believe any tool that can simplify a complex task while improving both the customer experience and the consistency of the end product is a job well done,” Carr says. “Eversys has gone about automating all the tasks that would be done manually inside a café, while also replicating barista methodology within their technology platform. The result in the cup speaks
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for itself. As the system also facilitates handsfree operation, ST technology enables more eye contact with the customer. This in turn enables staff to have meaningful engagement with customers, while also delivering a consistently high-quality cup of coffee. Carr says that while it can be tough for baristas to disengage from the familiar motions of manual coffee-making, once they experience the Eversys’ ST range and realise how they help get their job done faster, safer, and at scale with reduced inconsistencies and wastage, more people are likely to enjoy and appreciate them more. Australian barista and Barista Hustle Founder Matt Perger has believed in the vision of Eversys since 2016 when he first became an ambassador for its Cameo machine. Since then, Perger has been convincing people of its ability and future in the coffee market. “It’s been a gradual chipping away of prejudice. Back when I started working with Eversys, people were gasping that I dared work with a ‘super automatic company’. Then you slowly convert people once they realise that what Eversys manufacture is really good and they have their biases rejected. That takes time,” Perger says. “It’s like Airbnb – people though it was going to be nonsense, the preposterous idea of hosting someone in your living room, and it has now become normalised. It just takes time. People will slowly come across or they won’t, and their decision will have consequences on their business and careers.” Perger says it’s also taken time and a lot of finessing by Eversys to balance the “traditional design vibes” of its ST range while retaining its automatic functionality. “You can’t just put the machine in a more fancy box. Lots of decisions have to be made,
