What Does Faucet Coffee Mean for the Coffee Enthusiast?

A specialty coffee shop in a park has replaced its espresso machine with four faucets. Staff place a cup under a tap to dispense pre-extracted coffee liquid, milk, or hot water, producing an Americano or milk coffee in seconds. The owner calls the method softening and aging, and the shop skips the usual freshly ground, freshly made sign.

The coffee is ground and extracted at least 12 hours ahead on a Swiss EVERSYS machine, then injected with oxygen and stored under vacuum. It passes through a Linkbar Single Touch brew head, where compressed air mixes it twice in seconds so the espresso keeps fresh crema and a smoother, denser mouthfeel. The owner says astringency drops noticeably.

While most independent coffee shops still emphasize freshly ground and freshly made coffee, a specialty coffee shop hidden in a park does the opposite, replacing traditional espresso machines with four faucets. After customers order, the staff simply place the cup under the faucet and dispense pre-processed coffee liquid, milk, or hot water, producing an Americano or milk coffee in seconds. This method—extracting coffee at least 12 hours in advance, injecting oxygen, storing it under vacuum, and then mixing it with compressed air through a Linkbar brew head—is called "softening and aging" by the owner. Is it an efficiency revolution in specialty coffee, or the coffee world's equivalent of pre-made meals? Let's find out.

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For those who are not good at cooking, pre-made meals solve the problem of having a hot meal at home. But the taste is ultimately somewhat lacking, and true gourmets who really care about food still prefer to order and have it made fresh.

The same goes for coffee. Although there are "pre-made" options on the market such as coffee liquid and freeze-dried powder that can quickly satisfy a craving, most enthusiasts still prefer to grind and brew fresh in order to fully appreciate the layers of coffee flavor.

However, recently a specialty coffee shop in a certain park has deliberately not put up a "freshly ground and freshly made" sign, and instead sells pre-made coffee. On the bar counter, there is no espresso machine, which is standard in most independent coffee shops; instead, there are four faucets. After customers place an order, the staff places the cup under the faucet to dispense coffee liquid, milk, hot water, and so on, and after a short wait they can get an Americano or milk coffee.

According to the shop's explanation, the coffee in the store is first ground and extracted at least 12 hours in advance using a Swiss EVERSYS coffee machine, then oxygen is injected before vacuum storage, completing the so-called "softening and aging." The processed coffee liquid passes through the Linkbar Single Touch brew head and is mixed twice within seconds using compressed air, so that the final espresso retains fresh crema while also having a smoother, denser mouthfeel.

According to the owner, after the coffee liquid undergoes "softening and aging," the astringency is noticeably reduced, and even people who do not usually drink coffee can easily accept and come to like this drink. In addition, the pre-processed coffee liquid has stable quality control, ensuring consistent output quality, and consumers can drink a good cup of coffee without waiting a long time.

Because the owner was once the runner-up in an AeroPress competition and therefore already has some fame, and because the first store's format is so unusual, it naturally aroused the curiosity of enthusiasts, who went one after another to check it out. But perhaps because the new store had just opened and too many people came, quite a few people reported that there were not enough seats in the store and they could only sit in the outdoor park corridor to drink, so the overall service experience fell short of some customers' expectations.

But in the eyes of coffee enthusiasts, whether it tastes good is far more important than the store environment. The signature combo became many people's first choice for a check-in, and after comparing, some felt the Americano had a prominent flavor, while others thought the milk coffee was sweet and easier to drink. One can only say that tastes differ, and it is hard to judge which is better.

More people focused on the production method of "aged coffee." Coffee liquid extracted and pre-processed in advance is indeed similar to pre-made meals, but unlike the traditional impression that "pre-made meals taste bad," this cup of pre-made specialty coffee may better suit the public's taste and also meet consumers' demand for getting drinks faster.

Freshly ground and freshly made coffee can certainly better showcase coffee's flavor, but under the faster pace of life and work, consumers have raised higher demands for efficiency and quality of output. This store's attempt precisely caters to some people's needs and also makes people realize that coffee served faster than chain brands is actually not hard to drink.

Image source: Xiaohongshu

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