What do McCafé drink standards look like since the first McCafé opened?

A customer reported that baristas at some McCafé stores dose the portafilter in advance, skip weighing and tamping, leave the steam wand uncleaned, and extract again through wet residual grounds in the basket. The post drew consumer doubts about output quality, even at prices that are not low, and McCafé staff replied that the brand has unified standards.

The chain has passed 3,200 stores in mainland China since McDonald's announced a 2.5 billion yuan coffee expansion, with a store-in-store layout, semi-automatic espresso machines and dedicated baristas. For context, when was the first mccafe opened and where: it began as a McDonald's coffee concept in Australia in 1993. Rapid growth now tests training and quality control.

Since McDonald's coffee brand McCafé announced increased investment in the Chinese market, its number of stores has surpassed 3,200. Its "store-in-store" model is equipped with semi-automatic espresso machines and dedicated baristas, focusing on a specialty coffee approach. However, recently a netizen posted that the operations of baristas at some McCafé stores are extremely non-standard: dosing the portafilter in advance, not weighing the grounds, not tamping, not cleaning the steam wand, and repeatedly extracting with wet residual grounds left in the basket. Although the prices are not low, the quality of the output has raised consumer doubts. At the same time, some netizens claiming to be McCafé baristas responded that the brand has unified standards, and isolated incidents should not represent the whole. This controversy reflects the quality control and training challenges McCafé faces amid rapid expansion, and is worth the attention of coffee lovers.

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Three years ago, McDonald's coffee brand McCafé announced that it would invest 2.5 billion yuan to expand the coffee market in mainland China, planning to cover more than 4,000 stores, striving to achieve "wherever there is McDonald's, there is McCafé, enjoy a good cup of coffee anytime, anywhere."

In the blink of an eye, three years have passed, and the number of McCafé stores has reached more than 3,200. Almost every McDonald's has an independent McCafé area. Under this "store-in-store" business model, each McCafé counter is not only equipped with a semi-automatic "Bumblebee" espresso machine and a matching color grinder, but also has at least one dedicated barista responsible for the output, allowing the premium line McCafé to gradually replace the relatively affordable freshly ground coffee.

However, recently a netizen posted on social media criticizing McCafé baristas for not operating in a sufficiently standardized way. The netizen said that while transferring at a high-speed rail station, they walked into a McDonald's and noticed during the meal that the barista's process for making drinks was very casual. The following is the netizen's specific description:

First, the portafilter had already been locked onto the grinder to receive grounds in advance, even if the next customer ordering coffee would not appear for ten minutes. Moreover, there was no weighing of the dose at all—whatever amount came out was what was used. The barista only distributed the grounds and did not tamp.

Second, no water was run before extraction; the steam wand was inserted directly into the cup to steam the milk, and only slightly aerated at the end; during the pour, the cup was not tilted, and the milk was poured in directly like a waterfall, then pretending to finish with a latte art design that had no structure at all. What is worse, the steam wand was never wiped from beginning to end. (From the pictures posted by the netizen, the steam wand was indeed covered with milk stains.)

Finally, the barista knocked the extracted wet puck from the portafilter into the knock box, and without rinsing or wiping it, directly continued to grind coffee into it on the grinder. The netizen added that visually about one-fifth of the wet grounds still remained in the portafilter and had not been knocked out clean, which meant every new dose of grounds was mixed with one-fifth old wet grounds at the bottom and repeatedly extracted.

However, the coffee made under such casual operations is not cheaply priced: Americano 19 yuan, latte 21 yuan.

In response, many netizens in the comments believed this should be an isolated phenomenon. McCafé has a dedicated personnel training system, and the employee who operated non-standardly was very likely an untrained newcomer temporarily filling in, which is not the case at all McCafé stores.

Another netizen who claimed to be a McCafé barista said that McCafé actually has clear standards: 22 grams of grounds, and the grinder's output and grind size are adjusted in advance. If every cup required weighing the dose, it would slow down output efficiency and lead to customer complaints. In addition, McCafé baristas are not only responsible for making coffee; work in other positions also needs to be covered. Therefore, "one cannot conclude that McDonald's makes coffee casually just because an individual employee did not follow the standards."

At the operational level, when McCafé first promoted itself externally, it emphasized that unlike other convenience-oriented coffee, McDonald's has independent dedicated baristas, rather than having them fry chicken during peak hours and make coffee when idle. These baristas all receive 100 hours of training and there is strict product quality control, in order to comply with the "specialty coffee trend."

But judging from feedback on social platforms from people with experience, the "little yellow cup" has not become popular as expected, and McCafé has also let inexperienced people "step in temporarily" because of insufficient staffing. If this continues, negative reviews such as "operations not following standards," "inconsistent quality control," and "poor value for money" will only increase.

Image source: Internet

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.