There was a time when café culture was characterised by writers, musicians and artists who had come together in cobbled backstreets to discuss ideas or quietly explore their intellectual pursuits, coffee in hand, nose deep in a book. All that changed in the nineties however, when US sitcom Friends became a smash hit with UK audiences. Millions of women emulated Rachel's haircut, while just as many men wanted to be as funny as Chandler.  Suddenly everyone wanted to hang out in funky little coffee bars with friends as cool Joey and as quirky as Phoebe. We probably all knew someone as tidy as Monica and as hapless as Ross. Trouble was, we had nowhere to drink coffee with them.

Nowadays most high streets are home to at least one major coffee chain and in cities there are a number of brands all competing for the coffee drinking public's business. Smaller independent coffee houses have also become increasingly popular, with more and more of us deciding against an afternoon drink in the pub, in favour of cake and Lattes in the more civilised environs of a café.

Coffee anyone?

In the ‘Coffee Trivia' section of its website, mobile coffee bar Hit Coffee is home to an array of fascinating facts - apparently, over half of the espresso consumed in the UK is drunk in the South East of England; while more than 900,000 cups of Fair Trade coffee is consumed every day in the UK with sales of these products increasing 40% year on year.

The International Coffee Association highlights the importance of coffee to the economy: "It is one of the most valuable primary products in world trade, in many years second in value only to oil as a source of foreign exchange to developing countries. Its cultivation, processing, trading, transportation and marketing provide employment for millions of people worldwide. Coffee is crucial to the economies and politics of many developing countries; for many of the world's least developed countries, exports of coffee account for a substantial part of their foreign exchange earnings, in some cases over 80%."

Fair Trade

The increasing move toward Fair Trade products reflects growing concerns about how our everyday consumables are produced. Greater knowledge and understanding has led to calls for a much better deal for the developing countries involved. Oxfam sums up why so many of us are choosing to behave more ethically, both as businesses and consumers, towards the producers of these goods: "While you go shopping for delicious Fair Trade food and drink, people in the developing world are earning a decent living, feeding their family, putting their children through school. Fighting poverty."

Fair Trade labelling was actually created in the Netherlands in the late 1980's. The Max Havelaar foundation launched the first Fair Trade consumer guarantee label in 1988 on coffee sourced from Mexico. In March 1994, the Fair Trade mark was launched on its first ever product in the UK and by 2006 over 1500 Fair Trade retail and catering products were available in the UK; evidence that a movement that was initially perceived as quite hippy, had well and truly become mainstream.

Why a Bean to Cup machine?

The modern day espresso machine was created by Italian Achilles Gaggia in 1946 and worked by using a spring powered lever system. The Faema Company produced the first pump driven espresso machine in 1960.

At the gourmet end of the market, fully automatic Bean To Cup coffee machines use whole coffee beans instead of pre-ground coffee, creating a fresher taste and a richer aroma. The coffee beans are ground on demand, with the machine then extracting the coffee under high pressure and foaming the milk to the desired temperature, before filling the cup to the exact level. The coffee grinds are then automatically moved into a waste tray.

Much like the professional pump espresso machines we have become so accustomed to seeing in our favourite coffee bars, Bean to Cup machines provide a much higher calibre of coffee. Offering coffee at the touch of the button, they demand very little maintenance.

There are a variety of models on the market to suit your needs. A light volume machine will usually serve between 30-80 cups a day, a medium volume 100-200 cups, while a high volume machine will serve considerably more. If your machine is to be used in a small office then a light volume will suffice, a cafeteria however, will demand a much higher capacity model.

It is usually the case, says Fenton Wayne of Food and Drink, that cheaper models do not have a built in milk frother, but may have the option of an ‘add on' that froths the milk. "The more expensive models have a fully automatic milk frother built into the machine which is also refrigerated to keep the milk cool." If time is of the essence and your budget allows, then a fully automatic machine with a built in frother will no doubt save you money in the long term. Frothing the milk by hand is an extra headache and keeps staff from using that extra minute or two more productively.

Investing in a Bean to Cup machine will boost staff morale by offering more of a treat at break time, as well as making business meetings appear more professional. If used in a consumer setting, it will indicate a commitment toward customer care and a desire to appeal to all tastes and budgets.

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