You don’t need a professional barista to come and set your espresso machine for you; you can do it yourselves with a little bit of guidance.
Us chimps have all learned our skills through courses, training and practice and we know what we’re talking about! If we can do it, then anyone can. With the right training, everyone is capable of setting up an espresso machine.
If you are thinking ‘why should I set up my espresso machine,’ a properly set up, or ‘dialled in’ machine is essential to ensure you are serving the perfect cup of coffee. There are over 26,000 coffee shops and cafes in the UK, independent or chain, all serving coffee. So, what’s special about you? Well, you’re a Two Chimps Coffee customer for starters! You can be sure that by being one of our customers, that you’re up there in the top % of businesses that sell the best coffee.
Not everyone has the passion or knowledge needed to be able to make and sell great coffee, but we are here to help! While we’re on numbers, there are only 400 or so independent coffee roasters in the UK, and we are super proud to be one of those.
As a company, we are passionate about good coffee and bridging that gap between pod machine coffee drinkers and speciality coffee drinkers by showing how easy it is for anyone to make awesome coffee.
As part of the service when you join Two Chimps Coffee as a wholesale customer, we’ll meet and help you decide which of our unique coffees are ideal for your business and your tastes. Whether you’re selling 400 coffees a day in a busy high street café, or 50 coffees a day in your mobile coffee van, we are here to help you get the best from your espresso machine.
Setting up your espresso machine
As mentioned, we are also wholesale coffee suppliers, and for our customers, we set up your espresso machine, for free.
We’ll start by bringing some freshly roasted coffee beans, grinding them using your grinder and working out how much your portafilters will hold. Once decided, we will run this through your espresso machine and see how it pours, and importantly, how it tastes. If we find that the coffee tastes bitter, this means we have ground the beans too fine, and it has taken too long for the water to pass through the coffee bed. If the coffee is sour on the other hand, this means the coffee is too coarse, and the water can flow through too quickly.
Even the best coffee can taste bad if made incorrectly. Having a correctly set up espresso machine will help.
Don’t worry, though. We have to start somewhere to know where to adjust. Based on the taste, we now have that starting point to adjust the grind and find the sweet spot. We know, that as a general rule, your portafilter will hold between 14-22g of coffee for a double shot and that it should take around 20-25 seconds for the extraction to happen, partially depending on if your machine has a pre infuser or not.
With a bit of tweaking here and there, we will be able to get to that point. Sound daunting? Don’t panic, setting up your machine is something we will guide you through, and once it’s done, you won’t have to do it again! We’ll set your grinder to the correct settings, as well as your machine so you’ll only need to press a few buttons to make the best cup of coffee every time.
It may require the odd tweak now and again, but we’ll show you how to do this and if you still get stuck, we’ll always be on hand to talk you through or come in and see you.
Training
We are sure you don’t want to work all day, every day. Who will run the espresso machine when you are away from the premises? We will happily train all your staff on how to use your espresso machine. So, get that holiday booked! Your espresso machine will be in good hands.
It can be really fun training as a team and helping each other out, so we would always recommend doing this for your staff. If you have new staff, they don’t have to be left out either. We will come back and train them too, no problem. And to top it off, all of this is free to you as a Two Chimps Coffee customer.
We’ll also show you other fun stuff like how to steam milk correctly, and latte art. It’s great to get that espresso shot spot on, but you also want to make it taste awesome with milk, and look nice too. Again, anyone can learn to steam milk correctly; it just takes proper training and plenty of practice.
The first thing your customer will do is see the coffee before they taste it, so we want them to have a feast for the eyes! These days, plenty of people like to take pictures of their food and drink for social media; let’s make their cup of coffee instagrammable!
Here to help
We love being active on all platforms and sharing pictures, reviews etc, and it’s great when people shout about you online. We also write a blog about you as a new customer and share this with our following on social media, giving you a new customer base. Winner!
We will also show you how to keep your machine sparkling clean, as this can also affect the taste of your coffee. You don’t want the residue from yesterdays coffees tainting the taste of today’s cup. But luckily, it’s super easy and quick to keep your machine in tip-top condition, for many coffees to come. We have all the products you need to make sure you’re serving the best coffee around too.
Point of Sale
Two Chimps Coffee point of sale material, such as A-Boards with room for you to write on. Strut mounts with our cool logo on and leaflets with plenty of information about us and our coffees are all free too. We want to help you shout about the awesome coffee you are serving!
If all that wasn’t enough, we even offer a custom blend service. You can come to our roastery and create your very own unique blend of coffee, tailored precisely to your requirements.
So, who can set up my espresso machine? You can! But if you are a Two Chimps Coffee customer, you don’t need to as we do it for you.
Ready to join the troop? Get in touch with us today.
Meet the chimp behind this article!
Head Chimp founded Two Chimps alongside Laura in 2016 after being self-employed from the age of 21. He caught the coffee bug from using an at-home roaster, and the rest is history!
What Andy does outside of the treehouse:
When the weather’s nice, Andy loves going on bike rides with his trusty sidekick, microchimp Felix (who always leads the way, of course). Andy also enjoys spending time tending to the family’s vegetable garden, and looking after their at-home farmyard, which includes a cat, two guinea pigs, and six chickens!
Andy says…
“I believe every day is a school day, and I’m always looking for opportunities to stick my head in a book and absorb new knowledge. I also love a problem to solve and fix – there’s no such thing as problems, only solutions.”
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