Hypothetical question - what machine and workflow would able to make about 15 lattes in 10 minutes?

I'm thinking of the scenario after a large dinner party where your guests all choose "coffee" at the end of dinner, all want steamed milk, and you want to get everyone served before anyone's latte has cooled.

Is this even feasible?

jyl wrote:Hypothetical question - what machine and workflow would able to make about 15 lattes in 10 minutes?

I'm thinking of the scenario after a large dinner party where your guests all choose "coffee" at the end of dinner, all want steamed milk, and you want to get everyone served before anyone's latte has cooled.

Is this even feasible?

You need dual/tri groups if you want to accomplish that so quickly. Go to Starbucks and time how long it takes them to get through a line of 15 customers with a full staff and multiple machines

jyl wrote:Hypothetical question - what machine and workflow would able to make about 15 lattes in 10 minutes?

Given that a straight espresso shot runs for 30 seconds, forget about steaming milk. Unless you can grind tamp, pull and serve in under 15 seconds, you've already lost just serving straight espressos. No single group machine is going to pull 15 shots in 10 minutes, unless you've got a helper grinding dosing and tamping.

I think you need to adjust your expectations down. I think 2 minutes per drink is doable for milk drinks provided you've got everything you need easily at hand, and a machine that steams milk in the 30 second range. If you wan to go faster than that I think you'll need 2 groups, and a LOT of practice.

If they are all lattes, maybe it's easier to use (one or more) big moka pot(s) and steamed milk from a Belman or a normal espresso machine or both together.

Buying an espresso machine based on an extreme corner case might be pretty expensive... and lattes aren't going to show off the espresso that much given all the milk.

Makes sense, after dinner espresso should be a grace note not a crescendo?

Those quantities isn't actually an extreme scenario when we entertain...we've been slowly adding and changing things to make large dinner parties less of a struggle. The last change was installing a commercial undercounter dishwasher, just to give you an idea of the stupid lengths we are willing to go to.

I'm restoring a two group machine now. I've been trying to figure out where the heck I could have room for it - other than the garage which is where it lives now.

We'd have to do some significant reconfiguration of the dining room, kitchen, or potentially the living room to accommodate it plus the grinder and space to work. It is not impossible but I'm going to have to figure out how much I really want to do it.

Acknowledging that mass producing lattes for people who are not espresso discerners is not necessarily the highest ambition of many on this forum - but I have a wife to please! She expects me to produce the requested food and beverages, on time and without cussing loud enough to trouble the guests. If she's going to afford me the budget and space to explore the possibilities of espresso, there will have to be compelling benefits for her

I've stayed in places with Nespresso machines of various types. Convenient but not really engrossing. And Keurig machines or rather what they produce are really not interesting to me.

lagoon wrote:Alternative solution, use smaller cups. 160ml cappuccino cups and split your shots.

+1 to that.

That is totally doable (1-1.5 min for 2 split shots) if your guests aren't expecting large latte buckets. A smaller but delicious capp/flat white would be a good way to round up the dinner and still be able to snooze afterwards.