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The Douwe Egberts Coffee Machine at Headquarters

August 19, 2009 By 12 Comments

One of the first things I did when my original company became successful was to order a Douwe Egberts coffee machine for the breakroom.  For the uninitiated, Douwe Egberts coffee is the best in the world.  There are no exceptions.  In fact, I was visiting someone in a town called Branson, Missouri several years ago and there was a restaurant that had the perfect cup of coffee.  The waitress took time to go in the back, write down the name of the machine, open it and find the precise blend of coffee inside, and a lot of other data that went above and beyond what I asked (she was tipped very well).

Basically, this has no meaning to anyone except those of you who knew me growing up and realized how much I wanted this machine.  It’s … well, it’s everything that it promised to be and it doesn’t get old.  It’s so amazingly cool to me that all I wanted when I was ten years old, reading Value Line reports in that little wooden library cubical was to have my own office, invest money, and drink gourmet coffee out of gold rimmed china.  I’m there.  Now, It’s just a matter of compounding and seeing how big I can get this empire.

How the Douwe Egberts Coffee Machine System Works
The principle behind the system is that each cup of coffee should be absolutely perfect, brewed in seconds, and taste precisely the same as the 1,000 cups before it and the 1,000 cups after it.  To do this, the coffee itself is brewed in factories by white-gloved scientists roaming around with clipboards, examining every stage of the production process.  The finished coffee is concentrated to an incredible degree and shipped in frozen boxes to distributors, which then take them to restaurants and offices.  The Douwe Egberts system machines reconstitute the coffee based on your desired brew strength inputs, infusing extremely hot water and dispensing the finished cup in a matter of moments.  Thus, there is never any brew time or waiting.  You simply walk up to the machine, press a button, and your perfect cup of coffee is in your hands before you realize what’s happened.

The Douwe Egberts Cafitesse C60 coffee system machine allows us to brew coffee, cappuccino, espresso, and other beverages in a matter of seconds. It was something I had wanted for years and when the original company became successful, it was brought in immediately.

The Douwe Egberts Cafitesse C60 coffee system machine allows us to brew coffee, cappuccino, espresso, and other beverages in a matter of seconds. It was something I had wanted for years and when the original company became successful, it was brought in immediately.

The Machine We Bought and Had Delivered
The specific machine we bought was the Douwe Egberts Cafitesse C60, which allows us to make cappuccinos, espressos, black coffee, and one other drink of our choice.

Cost of the Douwe Egberts Coffee System
Ordinarily, the machines are provided as a result of the volume of coffee ordered by the office or restaurant.  Since our business model is based upon an incredibly low amount of human effort, instead relying on technology to pair up vendors and our customers, we knew there was no way we would consume thousands of cups of coffee so we bought the machine outright and pay for periodic deliveries from a local distributor.  Off the top of my head, I don’t recall how much it cost but it was a couple thousand dollars for the machine alone, then we had to have it hard wired into a water line so it could work effortlessly.  I want to say the coffee itself and supplies are somewhere around $200 or $300 per month.  Again, I don’t remember but I’m fairly certain that’s close.

Burger King Now Uses the Douwe Egberts Coffee System

As a matter of fact, a few years ago, Burger King switched its entire coffee system to Douwe Egberts and its sales in the category have markedly improved according to the releases sent out by corporate.  The guy that setup our machine actually told us that he could match the exact percentage settings if we wanted to replicate the taste by modifying the reconstitution numbers but I actually went a little bit stronger because I like a severe kick to my coffee (not Starbucks black coffee strong, though – that stuff is horrible despite the beans being great).  Recently, though, Burger King switched to Seattle’s Best coffee, meaning I no longer go out of my way to get a cup from there.A Warning – The Senseo Douwe Egberts Coffee Will Not Taste the Same!
If you think you can recreate the taste of the restaurant version of Douwe Egberts coffee with the Senseo coffee brewer or ground Douwe Egberts beans, listen to me carefully: You will fail.  It cannot be done.  It has to do with the brewing process and how the coffee system is put together.

Senseo Douwe Egberts Coffee

It's good for what it is, but don't expect to create the restaurant flavor and experience with the ground version of Douwe Egberts coffee for the Senseo machine. Trust me, I tried.

I speak from experience.  I bought roughly a dozen different coffee machines, including the Senseo, and tried every derivation possible to get it close and it never tasted like anything more than regular store-brand coffees.  If you are going to do it, and you love the DE brand, get the machine.  It’s some of the best money we’ve ever spent.

Then again, I’m passionate about coffee.  My personal philosophy is to spend money on the things that matter to you and take conventional wisdom with a grain of salt when it comes to how you “should” manage your affairs.  For instance, hell would freeze over before I would ever buy a mini-van.  That may sound extreme, but the notion of making a decision based on the practical ramifications and not counting the emotional inputs is foolish, short-sighted, and a primary cause, in my estimation, of why so many people suffer the oft-recognized, “life of quiet desperation”.

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  • SimpleScentsations

    Hi. This may be an inappropriate place for this, if so I apologize. I also love this coffee. The problem is I also only need small amounts. I was wondering where you purchase the syrup for the machine??

    Thanks so much!!!

    • http://www.joshuakennon.com Joshua Kennon

      It took us forever to figure this out but apparently there are distributors throughout the country. Douwe Egberts used to be owned by Sara Lee, but they’ve been sold (or at least, some part of them has because we got a big letter a year ago explaining that the coffee wouldn’t change but that the company had been restructured and moved to some other firm or something). If you can find out who owns them, you call for your local distributor. They set up a schedule to deliver the syrup to you based on your needs. Our guy only stopped by every few months. You pay them for whatever they deliver; they’ll bill whatever credit card you have on file. It’s often a local vending machine company.

      Try and go to http://saraleefoodservice.com/en/SalesSupport.aspx and then enter “beverages” on the check box and select your state from the drop down menu. That will give you the contact information of a support person, who should be able to point you in the right direction. I think that’s how we eventually found our local distributor.

  • Hasufin

    A close friend and I discovered Deuwe-Egberts coffee in much the same way as you did – we had lunch at a bar in downtown DC, and in spite of them having incredible scotches, it was the coffee we noticed the most.
    It’s very sad that DE doesn’t offer anything for the home. We’ve been trying to get a few local restaurants to invest in the machines, but thus far to no avail.

    • http://www.joshuakennon.com Joshua Kennon

      Hasufin,

      Occasionally, you can find restaurants that go bankrupt or upgrade their equipment on eBay. During the height of the recession, I saw some of these machines go for as low as $90 in mass liquidation sales. If you can get your hands on the machine itself instead of buying or leasing one from the company, you can buy the coffee supplies from the distributor. You have to buy four “packs” of coffee at a time, which is $200 or $300, but they seem to last forever … I mean, each of them has far too many cups of coffee for even a handful of people to drink! On a per-cup basis, it ends up being very, very cheap.

  • chris.t

    After the first cup we were addicted! For the past few months we have been doing research and finally found the brand and your website. We were very happy when we found others that considered this to be one of their favorite brand. I have a question, how long do you usually store the concentrate in the machine for? They said the recommended period is 3 weeks. Have you notice any degradation of the aroma after 3 weeks?

  • Joeveilleux

    I just got back from a restaurant where I raved about the coffee.  I asked if it was syrup based and the waiter said yes and mentioned Dowe Egbert.  I have been scouring looking for the machine since the company had coffee beans.  Thanks for the info.  Guess I’ll have to wait til I can round up some other serious coffee drinkers.  Loved your post.  Pat in Pittsburgh.

  • Imacrafty

    Thanks for this article.  I will stop the crazy thoughts in my head thinking that I can replicate the coffee @ home.  Wish I worked at your office!  I’ve been on this quest for over 10 years.  

    • Joshua Kennon

      No problem. I went through the exact same thing – we tried everything until i finally figured out the machine itself is a necessary part of the taste.

  • http://twitter.com/yergnov1 yergnov1

    We have the Douwe Egberts coffee. They are now owned by Farmer Brothers Coffee…

    Do you have a recommendation on the blend? i have had it much better than ours is in the office and I am convinced that it is the ratio of water to coffee.  We are using the colombian regular…

    thanks!

    Y

    • Joshua Kennon

      You’re right about 1.) the Farmers Bros. ownership change; I never updated this post after putting it up a couple of years ago and 2.) the ratio of water to coffee being important.  The whole system is designed so that EVERY cup of coffee should taste the same and it has always been that way for us, even when we go out to restaurants, I can tell you if the coffee comes from Douwe Egberts.  So if you’ve had it better, it is either your blend or the concentration ratio.

      I don’t remember which blend we used – maybe Kona?  I know I also liked their plain Columbia Regular, as well, which seems to be popular at restaurants.  I’m writing from my home study right now because I need to spend the afternoon working on this months’ content for About.com, otherwise I’d check for you.  I know that when they installed the machine, the technician talked to me about the flavor I liked and used Burger King as a base (this was back when they were using the Douwe Egberts machines before switching to Seattle’s Best and losing me as a customer).  He mentioned that the Burger King ratio was higher than the default “normal” ratio and boosted ours using this little handheld tablet that plugged into the machine that only the techs have.  It’s been 4 or 5 years but … maybe 55 to 58?  I can’t recall, I can still see the guy in the break room installing it but I was only half paying attention but those numbers keep popping up in my head, though I can’t explain the reason.  The difference was noticeable and our coffee hat a bit more bite after he changed it for us, though.  He said if we ever wanted it modified in the future, we just had to call and he’d come out and tweak it for us.

      Is it too watery?  Too concentrated?  What are you experiencing?

      • http://twitter.com/yergnov1 yergnov1

        Thanks for the reply.

        I will have to talk to the tech and ask him about the concentration. I am thinking we are too watery, because it does not offer that full-bodied experience that I am familiar with from DE coffee.  I had some this weekend from a resort and knew right away that it was DE and delicious. Ours in the office is lacking, but hard to tell exactly what…

        We are using the Colombian, but not sure if there are multiple offerings in that.

        I knew your post was from a long time ago and was taking a chance that it was even still monitored. Thanks for what you did give me, I will try to use the BK as a reference in talking to the tech.

        Best,

        Y

  • Lazerguppie

    We have one of these machines at my workplace and we are trying to figure out how many cups of coffee you get out of the 2L concentrate. I cannot find this info anywhere. Any chance you know? We are trying to justify (for lack of a better word) keeping the coffee machine stocked and having staff pay for it, either by the cup or by monthly fee.