Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/491359
34 STiR tea & coffee industry international Zwirnerei a. d. Wutach GmbH P.O. Box 1163 79778 Stühlingen · Germany Phone +49/ 7744/ 9396-0 Fax +49/ 7744/ 9396-20 info@zwirnerei-wutach.com www.zwirnerei-wutach.com TEA BAG THREAD FOR ALL TYPES OF TEA-PACKING MACHINES BUNN, FETCO and Curtis offer customized equipment for large chains investing in iced tea dispensers though none of these firms were willing to go on record with brand names. Ratterman at BUNN explained the custom design process. Requests for high-vol- ume equipment typically originate with the sales team. The length of time it takes to deliver depends on how much research and development is needed to meet customer requirements. Something as simple as a cosmetic change to display the customer's brand can often be handled in a matter of weeks whereas resizing the internals of a brewer or dispenser can take much longer. A fairly common request is to maintain output using less counter space. BUNN and Curtis have both added narrower machines to their catalogs in recent years to meet that demand. Ratterman described one innovation by BUNN: "We have what we call a dual dilution brewer so you're able to brew and store and serve twice as much product in about the same amount of footprint—where there used to only be room for one 3.5 gallon dispenser, now you have room for two 3.5 gallon dispensers in roughly the same amount of space." At Curtis, simplifying service and support has also been a goal for design changes. "A lot of what we do, the design and engineering philosophy, is based on support- ing the corporations that purchase our equipment and the technicians. An example is what we call our 'super tea board' where we're creating one controller that fits across our whole line of tea brewers," said Curtis. "We are looking at developing more products in our tea product line to go along with the new trends in tea," said GMCW business manager Willy Dahmen," It's here to stay and I actually think it's going to grow." Sweet tea success From 2010 through last year, the variety of tea and tea-infused beverages appearing on menus continued it upward trajectory. The word "sweet" as part of a tea item's name appeared nearly twice as often in 2012 than it did in 2010 according to research by Technomic. McDonald's went national with a sweetened orange peko and peko-cut black tea on its dollar menu in 2011. Burger King and Wendy's also expanded their iced tea and tea-and-juice blend offerings in 2013. This new thirst for tea is what drove interest in commercial equipment with auto-sweetener features. "We've had the auto-sweetener option in our equipment for many years. The tech- nology has changed a little bit. We're seeing more and more requests for brewers that have the auto-sweetener function," said Ratterman. The ITB series of dispensers from BUNN features a large tank for brewing three or five gallon batches of tea. Dilution nozzles facilitate switching between brewing sweet or unsweetened tea. When using both sides, an operator can make six gallons in the same narrow footprint. Curtis said, "Five years ago, you'd walk into chains in the South. When they'd make their sweet tea, they'd dump in a pound of sugar per gallon and use a big old spoon to stir it. We made a brewer that has a sweet tea dilution spout that works just like a soda fountain would that dispenses the appropriate amount of sweetener as it's brewing." The Curtis RSTB brewing system has a rotating brew cone to allow multiple teas to be brewed in same counter space. Like the BUNN ITB series, the RSTB has two dilu- tion spouts so an operator can brew two teas from the same machine. The tea brewers from BUNN and Curtis come with digital controls to ensure cor- rect volumes and adjust flow rates in order to keep the brew process more accurate and precise. Big focus on flavor National coffee brands have steadily increased the number of tea items they offer in the past few years. Now the smaller regional chains and specialty shops are now look- ing to capitalize on the American consumer's new desire for tea. It is these shops that will experiment with iced tea brewed by the batch or with novel methods for extracting flavors from traditional or herbal teas. Lou Vastardis, co-founder of BKON, said, "Our initial market [for the BKON Craft Brewer] is third wave coffee houses and their customers because it allows a cof- Five liter commercial water boiler and warmer from Zojirushi Alpha Dominche Steampunk brewer BUNN Trifecta single-cup air brewer