Lets talk about water treatment for coffee & coffee shops.

You know, this is a subject that a lot of us don't agree on. I do know good coffee when I taste it. And you know, most of the coffee I taste that isn't good can be traced to the fact that there isn't any water treatment. Some people use just filtration, like carbon filtration & micron filtration to take out the chlorine & some of the taste & things, and I guarantee you that will make the water better.

But here's the problem… The chains that make coffee like Starbucks, they have a method that they use & they do it the same all across the country.

Whether you are in Seattle, San Francisco, Miami, a Starbucks coffee is going to taste the same because they use the same type of water treatment.

And essentially what they do is they use reverse osmosis, and then they re-mineralize a little hardness back to it. I don't know exactly what the level is, but they re-mineralize to add a few minerals back to the water. What I suggest is a systems that's called a "coffee shop" system. It consists of a wall-mounted RO, rated at 300 gallons per day. Then it has a holding tank. Typically somewhere between 40 and 80 gallons depending on what you need.

Some people use it for slush machines. They use it for ice machines. They use it for cappuccino and ice tea. You may want to talk to your coffee brewer who makes your coffee maker, because sometimes you can't use pure RO water in some coffee makers because they have electrodes that sense the conductivity of the water and if the water's too pure then the electrodes won't work and then the coffee maker's going to overflow.

If you're using untreated water in your coffee makers and in your coffee, you're product's not as good and people aren't going to like it as well, and ultimately your equipment isn't going to last as long because the hard minerals in your water is going to damage the equipment.

So you'll have lower operating costs, better coffee, and bottom line, more satisfied customers.