La Cimbali discuss the importance of water treatment systems

When dealing with and using water, it’s vital to remember that everyone’s water is different, and this is particularly important within the coffee industry. In every café, restaurant and coffee shop where intricate and complex coffee machines often produce 100s of cups of espresso each day, having the correct water treatment system in place ensures that every drink will taste the best it can be.

La Cimbali’s’ Coffee Specialist Rob Ward explains, “Water quality and treatment are extremely important for creating great tasting coffees and at the same time protecting any equipment used. For baristas there are two reasons to treat water before it enters the coffee machine – to improve the taste of the final drink and increase the reliability of the coffee machine by reducing scale build up.

There is no doubt that the composition of water will affect the taste of coffee. The extent to which various dissolved solids and their concentration exactly play out against the different taste sensations has always caused some debate. Although the water specifications required to give the expected taste for any coffee is probably best left to the coffee roaster, myself and the team at La Cimbali can offer the following advice to help protect coffee machines from scale build up.

Coffee machines with steam boilers are extremely vulnerable to scale build up because the high temperatures encourage the deposit of scale and then this scale can lodge in various components of the machine causing blockages. But as descaling coffee machines is expensive and often requires the machine to be taken away to be treated and parts replaced, it’s crucial to have an appropriate water treatment system in place to prevent this. With plenty on the market to choose from, there are a number of factors that need to be considered before purchasing, including; cost, effectiveness, corrosiveness of output water, waste water, taste, capacity and environmental considerations.

At La Cimbali we recommend the use of sodium water softeners, as they auto regenerate and help keep a stable pH. However whichever water treatment system you choose, we have these top tips to help you find the right one:

• Capacity – All systems have a defined maximum capacity and it’s important to size them correctly to avoid running out of treated water or paying too much for an over specified unit. We recommend fitting individual water meters for each coffee machine that are non-resettable and count up because the water history is never lost.
• Check water hardness – Many people do not test the hardness of the water entering their coffee machine before installing a water treatment system. Lots of areas of the UK do not have hard water so water treatment systems are not always necessary.
• Installation – Try to arrange installation in a place where the system can be seen rather than hidden away, to be reminded about routine exchanges and maintenance.
• Service and maintenance – Scheduling regular service and maintenance is essential. It’s not unusual to arrange the service of the water treatment system at least every six months, and in harder water areas this may be much more frequent. It should be given the same importance as boiler inspections and other equipment maintenance visits as it can easily be forgotten, as the damage being done by scale is unseen until it’s too late.”