Taste of the future

CALIFORNIA COFFEE SHOP’S LATTE-SLINGING ROBOTS COULD PUT BARISTAS OUT OF BUSINESS.

SAN FRANCISCO • The idea came to Henry Hu while he waited in line at a café. Baristas do repetitive work and produce inconsistent results, he observed. So why not automate coffee service?

On Monday, he took a step toward doing that with the opening of Cafe X in San Francisco. After a customer enters an order at the kiosk or through an app, a robot does the work of moving the cups around, first from the automated espresso machine and then to where customers can pick them up.

The glassed-in kiosk looks at first glance like a Nespresso machine operated by a robotic arm. But the tall grinders are full of fresh beans from local coffee roasters Verve, AKA and Peet’s, and no pods or powdered milk are used.

After ordering, customers are given an estimated wait time, which is usually a few minutes. The coffee — all of it for espresso drinks — is ground and tamped to order inside the machine. When the drink is ready, the customer enters a code, and the robot places the cup on a small elevator that lowers it to that customer’s individual window.

Hu declined to say how much the robot costs.

The three roasters who provide the coffee for Cafe X’s drinks programmed the espresso machines for certain grinds, tamping pressure and extraction time. The milk is stored in a large refrigerated area inside the kiosk. Roasters can also program the milk temperature and froth level for their drinks.

Hu, the Cafe X CEO, said the firms plans to open other cafés. The concept is somewhat reminiscent of Eatsa, a San Francisco restaurant where quinoa lunches are delivered without servers or cashiers (though workers in the back make the food).

Cafe X can produce an average of 120 cups of coffee per hour and soon will offer customers using the app the option of ordering ahead.

Hu says that the plan “is not to replace as many baristas as possible with as many robots as possible’’ — although this is essentially what he has done. Many of today’s espresso machines are fairly automated already, he points out, and there will always be staff on hand to guide customers through the experience and make coffee recommendations.

“From our experience, the real art part (of coffee) is the ingredients you use,” he said. “Not so much the coffee-making part. That by nature is a repetitive, robotic process.”

THE REAL ART PART (OF COFFEE) IS THE INGREDIENTS YOU USE.