Office Coffee Machines by Daily Cup Capacity

Turn attendance into daily coffee demand

Start with this calculation:

Daily coffees = people attending × proportion drinking coffee × coffees per coffee drinker + visitor and meeting coffees.

Alternatively, use coffees per person attending, including non-drinkers in the average. Do not mix these two approaches or apply the non-drinker adjustment twice.

For example, assume 60 people attend, 75% drink coffee, each coffee drinker has 2 coffees, and visitors need 10 coffees:

60 × 0.75 × 2 + 10 = 100 coffees that day.

These are illustrative assumptions, not consumption statistics. Replace them with your attendance records, a short staff survey and, where available, existing machine counters.

Headcount and daily cups matrix

The matrix assumes that consumption averages 1, 2 or 3 coffees across everyone attending. It excludes visitors and meetings, which must be added separately.

Count demand at each tea point, not just across the building. A machine on another floor should not be treated as spare capacity unless staff can realistically use it.

Our suggested approach is to examine several representative working weeks, including the busiest attendance day and any regular events. A quiet Friday average is a poor specification for a crowded Tuesday.

Match daily cup capacity to the office

Use the following as editorial shortlisting bands, not industry-standard machine classes:

• Up to 50 coffees daily: consider compact professional machines where demand is spread out and someone can handle replenishment.
• 51 to 100 daily: seek an appropriate professional daily recommendation, then examine water supply and milk-drink throughput closely.
• 101 to 200 daily: compare higher-capacity machines with splitting demand between two tea points.
• More than 200 daily: assess a high-volume installation or several machines, with an explicit replenishment and cleaning plan.

Select a daily recommendation that covers your credible busy day, with an agreed allowance for growth or uncertainty. There is no universal spare-capacity percentage that can replace a proper demand assessment.

These bands do not dictate machine type. For the wider choice, start with office coffee machines; for larger installations, see high-volume use.

Separate manufacturer ratings from real use

A recommended daily output and an hourly output answer different questions. The first helps position the machine for its intended workload; the second describes production under stated conditions.

The examples below show why neither figure should be used alone. Manufacturer-claimed specifications checked in November 2026; confirm the exact model, configuration and current UK specification before ordering. These are capacity examples, not a performance ranking.

The hourly figures are published against DIN 18873-2, a standard used for the stated output measurements. They are not a promise that an office queue will move at that speed.

WMF’s linked brochure says performance was determined with a fixed water connection and depends on cup size. Its UK specification page provides separate drink-specific hourly figures, so request the applicable test conditions rather than interpreting a headline figure in isolation.

Specify the drinks, sizes, strength settings, milk system and electrical configuration in writing. A demonstration should reproduce those choices, not substitute smaller drinks to produce a more impressive result.

Check peak-hour demand and consecutive drinks

An office needing 100 coffees across the day may still struggle if a large group arrives together. Daily demand measures workload; peak demand measures whether people can get back to their desks promptly.

Suppose 30 coffees are needed in 15 minutes:

30 ÷ 15 × 60 = 120 coffees per hour equivalent.

That does not mean demand continues at that rate all day. It means the machine must complete that particular batch within the available window.

Include milk preparation and user time

The JURA W8’s published output is 83 espressos per hour, compared with 50 cappuccinos. The latter equates arithmetically to an average interval of 72 seconds per cappuccino under the stated output conditions, not a guaranteed individual preparation time.

Milk heating and foaming add work to the recipe, although the extent to which stages overlap depends on the machine. Do not assume that every milk drink has the same preparation time, or that two visible outlets mean two milk drinks can always be prepared simultaneously.

For milk-system choices, read fresh milk versus powdered milk.

Ask for a consecutive-drink test

Set a demonstration workload using your actual menu and mugs. For an illustrative 20-drink test, request 12 milk drinks and 8 black coffees, made consecutively.

Time from the first selection until the final drink is ready. Record:

• Cup placement, selection and collection time.
• Any pauses between drinks.
• Water, bean and milk replenishment.
• Grounds-drawer and drip-tray emptying.
• Automatic rinses and other interruptions.

Do not extrapolate a short test into a guaranteed all-day output. Use it to establish whether the proposed configuration handles your particular rush.

Calculate the interruptions, not just the drinks

Bean hopper capacity

Divide usable bean capacity by the programmed dose.

For an illustrative 500 g hopper and 10 g per coffee:

500 ÷ 10 = 50 coffees in theory.

At 14 g, the same calculation gives approximately 35 complete coffees. These examples assume one grinding and brewing cycle per drink, with no losses; recipes using additional cycles need separate accounting.

Ask which hopper supplies each drink. Two hoppers containing different coffees do not necessarily provide one interchangeable reserve.

Water tank capacity

A tank’s stated volume is not the same as water available for finished drinks.

For an illustrative 3 litre tank and 150 ml of machine-supplied water per drink:

3,000 ÷ 150 = 20 drinks before allowing for rinsing, retained water or any unusable reserve.

This is an upper-bound calculation, not an operational promise. Use the coffee and hot-water components of each recipe, not the final drink volume including milk.

If repeated filling would disrupt the office, compare plumbed-in and tank-fed machines. Confirm drainage separately: supplying fresh water does not, by itself, remove wastewater.

Grounds drawer and drip tray

The grounds drawer collects spent coffee cakes, often called pucks. Published examples above hold approximately 25 or 40 servings, but these figures do not establish a universal “typical” range for office machines.

Count brewing cycles, not just finished drinks. A recipe using an extra brewing cycle can consume drawer capacity faster than a simple one-cycle recipe.

Ask for the drip tray’s usable volume and its emptying procedure. Franke’s published technical sheet for an A600 configuration, for example, specifies a 3 litre drip tray, illustrating that wastewater capacity is a separate specification from the fresh-water tank.

A larger tray is useful only if the arrangement suits the installation. Check whether it drains automatically, where rinses discharge and whether staff have safe access for emptying.

Milk and replenishment ownership

For an illustrative peak of 20 milk drinks, each using 120 ml of liquid milk, the required milk is:

20 × 120 = 2,400 ml, or 2.4 litres, before allowing for system losses or cleaning.

Use liquid milk consumption, not the volume of expanded foam. Agree who checks supplies before the rush and who responds when a refill or emptying prompt appears.

Build a workplace-specific operating comparison

Compare offers using the same attendance, drink mix and operating period. Ask for itemised written quotations, rather than an unexplained package total.

Include the machine and any finance agreement, installation, water connection and drainage, filtration, milk cooling, servicing, cleaning products, beans, milk, electricity and staff handling time. Ask each supplier to state what is included, excluded and subject to VAT.

To calculate your own cost per cup, add the relevant expenditure over a defined period and divide by the coffees actually served during that period. Keep the VAT basis consistent and separate coffee from other drinks if their consumption is included in the same contract.

Before choosing, have the supplier confirm:

1. The proposed daily workload and busiest drinking window.
2. Drink sizes, doses and expected milk-drink proportion.
3. Consecutive-drink performance on the supplied configuration.
4. Expected refill and emptying intervals.
5. Installation requirements, cleaning responsibility and service arrangements.

Use the machine comparison guide to organise those responses. The strongest capacity specification describes both how many coffees are needed and how the office will keep them flowing.