In Australia, it seems everyone is running, surfing, at the gym, going to the beach to ensure they have just the right amount of a tan, not too much, not too little. Food is important too; how many café’s do you go into without seeing the word organic or free range on the menu

Here also, the passion for coffee from the importer of just the right beans to the roaster, to the barista is outstanding. The same cannot be said for cafés in the USA or a lot of other countries I’ve lived in throughout my life. All good so far, don’t you think? But yes … there’s a “but!” What I’ve noticed, and when I say noticed, I mean it’s in flashing lights, is the WATER. The water Australians drink in cafés – the water they accept that their coffee and tea is made with

I know it’s a sign of our times that water is being treated with more chemicals and less reverence than it should be, considering it is the source of life. Unfortunately, there is a finite amount of water on this blue glowing planet. Just take a moment to think about that; we have the water we have. What we have done over time is learnt how to recycle the water we have using chemicals.

Ironically, we treat the water we need for drinking to take out the pollutants we put into the water in the first place. We also add chemicals to make it clean and safe to drink, after travelling through thousands of kilometres of pipework, and then to my amazement, I find that some cafés filter the water to the coffee machine with a filter that introduces phosphates. Really? If you had a choice in the coffee you drank, would you choose to drink coffee made with phosphates, or coffee made with fresh, clean water? I’m a fresh, clean water type of guy myself

Cafés throughout Australia are some of the best in the world for the coffee they serve. However, due to filtration you could be drinking phosphates in your coffee. That’s the biggest difference I’ve seen here in Australia compared to America and Europe. Here in Australia, it seems everyone thinks about the food, but not the water

Did you know that cafés in Australia are some of the worst in the world for the water they serve? Cafés have a passion … passion for the food, coffee, seating and atmosphere. Passion to make the customers feel welcomed, to make them want to enjoy the visit and most of all, to make them come back – and come back with friends and family. And when they come back, they spend more, because they enjoy everything about the café and the people who have put so much passion into making them feel welcome.

But no passion for the water, why? I think it’s great that cafés in Australia will willingly provide water at the table, but it’s water from the tap. You can smell the chlorine and taste it too. Why, why have cafés in Australia not cottoned on to the fact that they spend thousands of dollars on quality food, quality coffee, seating, atmosphere cups, staff, and ambience, but not one of the most important items, the water?

It’s the one thing they give away, and the first impression the customer has of the café – smelly, off tasting tap water. I ask you, is that a good business decision? It costs practically nothing to filter the water, so that it tastes as it should do. Clean, fresh, sweet.

The trend in many parts of Europe and the USA now is to fit a tap where customers can help themselves to filtered water: fresh, clean water, with no colour, no smell or taste of chlorine or other chemical. If you owned a café, what would you rather serve? If you were a customer, what would you rather drink?

If you could offer fresh, clean tasting water, why not offer the water most of your customers have chosen to drink at home? BRITA filtered water.

For the past seventeen years, Australians have trusted the name BRITA to provide quality great tasting water in the home every single day of the year, simply by fitting BRITA Professional water filtration. There is a whole army of customers in Australia who trust the global brand BRITA to provide quality great tasting water free of chlorine, pesticides, lead, copper and other heavy metals. What do you think your customer would do given the choice? Tap water or BRITA filtered water

You can provide BRITA filtered water to your customers. The BRITA café set provides you with BRITA’s PURITY C technology; the café set tap will also tell you when the filter needs changing and comes with six BRITA branded pitchers and twenty four tumblers.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Cosh works for BRITA Professional. BRITA is the official water filter partner to AASCA, Café Biz Expo, Golden Bean Awards, La Zumba Barista Cup, Melbourne International Coffee Show and BRITA Professional HotClub Barista Cup.

E: professional@brita.com.au to find out more about BRITA water filtration and how you can upgrade your water filtration system.