It is many years ago now that I left school to train as a chef, after which I moved into hotel and wine management. After a few years, I was married and had my first child on the way and was thinking of what I could do with my career that would cut my hours and increase my pay. Sales, I thought. Great pay, and you get a free car. Sounded easy … but as you know, its not always as it seems.

I was taken on by Douwe Egberts and was given the London region of SW1. In those days, a filter for a coffee machine was just granulated carbon, and believe me, no one wanted to know about additional costs to the machine they had just purchased. Besides, everybody knew that a carbon only filter was going to do nothing for the maintenance of the machine or the coffee really, besides take out the chlorine in the water. I admit to not selling a filter myself, as with others of that time I knew a carbon filter on a coffee machine in London was, well … pointless, is the word I’m looking for.

I did well with Douwe Egberts and was soon head hunted by Servequip, distributors of Animo and Blickman coffee brewing equipment. As Product Manager there, I really learned of the need for good water filtration on a machine. The Dutch made Animo only recommended the use of BRITA; this was 25 years ago.

The American made Blickman suffered from scaling up with the hard UK water; this meant the machine was out of use more days than it was in use. So we fitted BRITA to those as well and sure enough, the problem went away.

Two years after joining Servequip, I was again head hunted; this time by Hobart, who had just bought WM Stills, an old established beverage company that is still remembered today. Hotels will often refer to the coffee making area as ‘The Still Room’.

Hobart were looking for a product manager to look after the Unic and Bremer range of coffee machines they were agents for. Once again, I came across companies that would only recommend BRITA water filtration for their machines. There had to be something more to this. I called BRITA, who very kindly invited me to visit them in Germany.

I was always in France or Germany anyway visiting Unic or Bremer, so took BRITA up on the offer. I found a family owned and operated business concentrating on just one thing – water filtration. Not just carbon … oh no; they realised years before that it was pointless putting just carbon systems on a high end coffee machine. The coffee suffers, the machine suffers, and the establishment serving the coffee suffers. Ion Exchange resin, along with Carbon, mixed and formulated so the filter would work the way it should do for the life of the filter – not block as others do.

I spent 14 years working for Hobart in the UK and Europe, until one day eleven years ago BRITA called and told me they wanted to start a coffee division in the UK and asked if I was interested in joining the company.

It’s not very often you get to work for a company that manufactures something that actually does what it says on the box; BRITA is such a company. I had learnt that through most of my employed life. Of course, I said yes. Our UK coffee division went from strength to strength, making BRITA the only obvious choice for consistent quality water for your coffee and to ensure your machine remained operating, worry free.

From the UK, I moved on to start the BRITA Professional division in the USA, and now I’m here in Australia doing the same.

Now, I’ve been lucky enough to travel the world working in the coffee related business of both machines and coffee. I’ve met some outstanding people in the coffee industry, and wherever I went I was taught by the experts that water was the key ingredient to making the perfect cup of coffee. Coffee is a natural product; you don’t add anything to it. You grow it the best you can, harvest with care, sort and roast. Then brew and enjoy.

So, I’m going to ask you to read the last few lines again before reading on, and you’ll be ready for the next few.

As I’ve said, I’ve travelled the world, I’ve drunk good and bad coffee, but here in Australia the passion from everyone to make the best cup of coffee is astounding. If the general public could see and hear what I have in the past 15 months from roasters, machine suppliers and baristas about the way coffee is to be made, I’m sure they would pay three times what they do now for a coffee.

Do you remember those few lines I asked you to read again? “Water was the key ingredient to making the perfect cup of coffee. Coffee is a natural product; you don’t add anything to it. You grow it the best you can, harvest with care, sort and roast. Then brew and enjoy.”

Now back to water filtration.

Did you know that for years in Australia, some water filter companies have used carbon and polyphosphate in the filter? Yes, that’s right … the water is passing over and being treated with polyphosphate. Adding to the water; adding to your coffee.

At BRITA, we have been working hard to educate the industry about BRITA’s ion exchange technology. We DO NOT use polyphosphates. The ion exchange resin used in the BRITA system attracts the calcium and magnesium and heavy metals in the water and binds it to the resin. In its place, it releases hydrogen, a natural element that already exists in water, before passing 100 per cent of the water over activated carbon and then on to the machine.

Our task this year is to carry on educating the industry as to exactly what is happening with their water and the coffee.  Once you try the BRITA system, you’ll see for yourself what the differences are.

Another of BRITA’s advantages I’m keen to get across is BRITA’s Blending Key. In preparing coffee, you need a degree of calcium and magnesium. You can’t take all of the minerals out of the water, as without them you can’t make a good cup of coffee. To combat this, other systems allow around 30 per cent of the water to pass over the filter. The problem with this is that these filters are designed to operate at a constant water pressure. If this should drop, your by-pass can increase, meaning you get more than the 30 per cent you’re expecting and the mix of water is not consistent.

The BRITA system differs in sending 100 per cent of the water into the filter. On the BRITA system, what’s commonly known as the by-pass, which we call blending, can be adjusted from 0 per cent to 70 per cent. Roasters and cafés can decide, depending on the water quality they have, how much water will go over the ion exchange resin. All of the water will still go over the activated carbon to take out taste, smell and colour, however, 100 per cent of the chlorine is removed. This also means cafés and roasters have additional parameters from which to design the perfect coffee.

The Blending Key has proven especially vital for Australia’s range of water quality. In Adelaide, Perth and the Central Coast they have hard water, with high amounts of calcium and magnesium. In comparison, Sydney’s water is pretty good. Because of these water quality variations, coffee that tastes fine in Sydney will have a vastly different taste in other regions due to the water.

It’s not by accident that BRITA Professional Water Filtration is used in the Australian and International Barista competitions. BRITA is the official water filter partner to the AustralAsian Speciality Coffee Association (AASCA) – Café Biz – Golden Bean Awards – La Zumba Barista Cup – Melbourne International Coffee Show and the BRITA Professional HotClub Barista Cup.

BY STEVE COSH