Coffee Machines that Make Hot Chocolate:
When we first launched coffee vending machines, we found that in many offices hot chocolate was used more than old stalwarts like cappuccino and café latte. As a coffee snob, this of course put me into a state of depression- “how could people prefer sugary cocoa over my beloved coffee, I mused”. But as I slowly came to terms with the reality, which is people just love their hot chocolate on a cold morning, we started to look at a whole host of ways to give people what they want (and I got over my hot chocolate vs coffee depression). In this post we list a number of coffee machines that also make hot chocolate .
Hot Chocolate Coffee Vending Machines:
The most common machine, which you find has the ability to make one’s coffee and tea beverages as well as hot chocolate, is the standard coffee vending machine. Coffee vending machines, by definition, vend at least one instant product (and usually more).
A coffee vending machine (or hot chocolate vending machine) is any dispensing machine which contains a number of canisters in which one can put any powder product one chooses. In an instant or bean vending machine one usually finds instant coffee or beans and powder milk at the very least. The next most popular ingredient to be used in vending machines is hot chocolate followed by sugar and then followed by soup or tea. Essentially all vending machines are able to make hot chocolate albeit sometimes at the expense of other ingredients.
For some people the downside of vending machines is the fact that they use powder milk which is why people sometimes look towards automatic coffee machines to give them their fresh milk cappuccinos as well as their hot chocolate fix.
Hot Chocolate Automatic Coffee Machines:
Automatic coffee machines are coffee machines which only use fresh ingredients -fresh/long life milk (not powder) and coffee beans. There are a small number of automatic machines which are also able to produce a hot chocolate although these are quite rare. We have only ever come across two automatic machine brands which have a hot chocolate function. These are the Delonghi Prima Donna 6900M and the WMF range of bean to cup machines ( The WMF 1200s,1500,1800,2000).
The Delonghi is particularly suits for domestic use whereas the WMF range is designed for very heavy commercial use (or at least the price indicates this). If you want to get a hot chocolate out of something in between, all automatic machines are designed with a “just hot froth” button which is intended to be used to mix in with hot chocolate manually.
Hot Chocolate Capsule Coffee Machines:
The first range of capsule coffee machines launched could pretty much only make espressos. As capsule machines became more and more ubiquitous, capsule manufacturers started to add a number of hot beverage options to be used in their coffee units. All the following capsule brands now have at least one hot chocolate capsule option:
1) Caffitaly
2) Keurig
3) Espresto
5) Flavia
Hot chocolate in capsule form is just as delicious as in powder form but, like coffee, comes at a steep price when packaged in a capsule.
Hot Chocolate only Machines:
There are some companies who only want hot chocolate (no coffee and no tea) or they want a stand-alone hot chocolate unit placed next to their existing coffee machine. There are two options for this. One option is to use a hot chocolate fountain ,which is perhaps more suited to restaurant and catering environments due to the high price and richness of the chocolate used with this machine.
The other more popular option is a one powder ingredient dispensing machine. Bravilor make a vending machine intended only for hot chocolate use. The Bravilor Solo (http://www.bravilor.com/en-IN/product/solo/252) is one of the most popular hot chocolate only machines and features a 3.2 litre storage canister which gives you a little more than 100 hot chocolate servings between fills.
Why Get A Hot Chocolate Machine?
There is really only one reason to get a hot chocolate machine and that is people really love their hot chocolate. Hot chocolate, unlike coffee, is seasonal with cold weather a big factor in making people really yearn for that morning hot chocolate.
Why Not to get a Hot Chocolate Machine?
Many companies who buy or rent a coffee machine from us which is capable of hot chocolate often ask us to disable the hot chocolate feature (or actually we often recommend this).Hot chocolate is a drink that people really love which means they drink a lot of it. When people drink hot chocolate they often drink hot chocolate on top of their normal daily coffee fix and not instead of this. Because of this companies beverage costs can skyrocket through the roof and therefore it is sometimes better to introduce hot chocolate slowly or sometimes not at all.
To try out a hot chocolate machine for your home or office, please complete your details below and we’ll organise a test for you in no time!
