How can we make our airline coffee better?

by Patrick

QUESTION:

Hi there,

Here's a perhaps offbeat question.

I work with a European regional airline and would like to improve the standard of the coffee we serve on board. Today it's Nescafe instant in little individual pre-packaged cups, to which the flight attendants add hot water from a jug. And if I'm honest: it's pretty bad.

Now we have a few constraints, alas. We can't install espresso makers. We don't have coffee brewers in our aircraft galleys, just water boilers. And most of our flights are relatively short (time for the 2 cabin crew to do a full drinks-and-snacks service for 100 passengers is perhaps 40 minutes, sometimes less).

So at the moment I can only see two possibilities:

1. We go with some sort of instant coffee :-( but perhaps make up pots of it and pour individual cups from the pot.

2. We find an alternative (e.g. cafetieres) - but we have space, weight and budget constraints so are limited in what's possible here (e.g. a little cafetiere of coffee for each passenger would be marvellous but (a) it would take too long, (b) the cafetieres would take up too much space and would weigh too much, (c) the washing up logistics would be complex and (d) they'd cost too much. You get the idea.)

As a "real coffee" aficionado I feel bad coming in here and asking for recommendations for instant coffee! But I currently avoid drinking coffee on my own airline and I'm not the only one, so any suggestions for ways we can take a step in the direction of righteousness would be really appreciated! Thanks!

Patrick


ANSWER:

Patrick, hi

That’s a heck of a good question. And a tough one given the constraints you describe.

One thing you might try is using liquid coffee concentrates.

Below I have added a link to one of these concentrates, available on Amazon. One bottle contains enough concentrate to make 32 cups of coffee, and includes a measuring cup within the body of the bottle.

For each cup of coffee required, pour one measure of cold concentrate into the cup and then add hot water to fill.

The concentrate is made from real coffee, not instant, so you get a much better tasting brew.

I hope this helps answer your question. Sounds good to me, as the bottles of concentrate wouldn’t take up much space.