Commercial Tea Service: Equipment & Accessories
The ability to brew and serve tea is a main offering in many foodservice and hospitality businesses. Commercial tea equipment can be used to steep and serve your own hot tea in gourmet cafes, dispense mass amounts of sweet and iced tea in hotel dining rooms and restaurants, and brew tea by the cup in hotel and office lobbies.
Knowing which commercial tea equipment meets the needs of your business is imperative to your tea service. Tea brewers rapidly bring tea leaves to life and are recommended for preparing large quantities of tea. Tea dispensers work in conjunction with brewers to keep freshly brewed tea ready for serving while accessories assist operators in providing quality tea and service. Below, we'll go over the different types of commercial tea equipment.
Commercial Tea Brewers
Tea brewers are popular in restaurants, cafes, and convenience stores that consistently provide tea. These tea brewers are available in automatic or pourover varieties with automatic units needing to be plumbed into a water line. Plumbed units are ideal for high-volume businesses as they continuously provide water for brewing; these models produce tea quicker than pourover brewers since they don't have to be manually filled for every new batch.
Ensure your unit is hooked up to palatable water. Purchasing a filter helps improve the overall taste and quality of your water.
While pourover brewers lower labor costs, they are more expensive to install, and they also require operators to fill the unit with water each time a new batch of tea is brewed. Pourover units can be installed nearly anywhere there is a proper power supply and typically have a lower purchase price. Manual fill brewers are more portable than their automatic counterparts.
Depending on the model, tea brewers have brewing capacities from 3.5 to 36 gallons per hour. Tea brewers can also serve tea if they are paired with dispensers. For a brewing dispenser, you'll want to make sure you choose one with a brew-through lid to keep contaminants out of your tea.
Tea & Hot Water Dispensers
Tea dispensers have capacities ranging from 1.5 to 10 gallons and though many are made of stainless steel, plastic variations are available. They may be cylindrical, round, narrow oval, square, or rectangular. Round versions may be slightly easier to clean, while angled versions may better utilize allocated space. Depth in tea dispensers ranges from 13 to 17.5 inches, while height can be anywhere from 21.5 to 23.13 inches.
Like tea brewers, hot water dispensers are available in manual-fill or plumbed variations. Plumbed hot water dispensers provide a constant supply of hot water, while manual-fill units must be refilled when water is low. Hot water dispensers may have these special features:
Adjustable Temperature
This lets operators control the temperature of the water for various cooking and cleaning applications.
Digital Controls
Digital controls simplify operation and let users monitor water temperatures. Most digital controls have an adjustable temperature feature.
Teapots, Infusers, and More
Teapots and coffee decanters come in various shapes, sizes, materials, and colors and are used to hold hot water and steep tea, which ensures a more flavorful final product. Teapots and decanters are great for self-service applications in hotel rooms or cafes. These are also great for establishments expanding into a more traditional and cohesive tea menu. Because of the materials, such as porcelain and ceramic, used during their construction, teapots typically shouldn't be used to boil water. Some include a built-in strainer that prevents leaves from getting in the tea.
Hottles are spherical vessels that have an insulated neck, heat-resistant glass, and a lid. These are most often used to hold hot tea, coffee, or water, and can be easily transported so patrons can pour an already-prepared drink into a cup or make tea, coffee, and more at their table without requiring a trip to a larger piece of equipment.
Tea balls and infusers are used for steeping tea. Leaves or grounds are placed in the device, then put directly in mugs or teapots filled with hot water. Tea balls come in a spherical shape, while infusers are available in various cylindrical shapes.
A tea press lets operators add tea leaves and hot water to the bottom of the cup, then they can steep and press the contents to stop infusing the tea and prevent oversteeping. These are great for upscale cafes that want new innovative ways to prepare and expand their tea menu.
Electric kettles quickly boil water for various food and beverage items such as hot chocolate, soup, and tea. Some teapots aren't meant to be used on a stove, but operators can use electric kettles to brew tea without wasting time and labor. Because they heat water on their own, these are also ideal in locations where stovetops are not available.
Tea Accessories
Airpots are insulated vessels designed to keep coffee and tea warm for extended periods without sacrificing beverage quality. These are ideal for events, restaurants, and continental breakfast stations where beverages aren't constantly brewed. Most airpots can keep coffee and tea hot for 4 to 6 hours – some even as long as 8 hours.
Operators can utilize creamer and frothing pitchers to serve cream, milk, and other additives for coffee and tea. These are popular in upscale cafes, coffee shops, and establishments wanting to elevate their aesthetic beyond plastic containers. Creamer pitchers come in various sizes, materials, and designs with capacities ranging from 1.5 to 50 ounces.
Sugar pourers can be placed on tabletops for customer use, requiring little maintenance and providing a casual feel. Upscale coffee shops and cafes might prefer sugar bowls over sugar pourers as they have a classier feel. Sugar bowls are best utilized when staff distributes sugar from the bowl, as these are easier to keep clean when fewer people directly interact with them.
Tea boxes keep your tea organized in compartments and easily accessible. These are likely to be placed in breakrooms, continental breakfast stations, and cafes for the option of steeping tea one cup at a time. Often made of wood, these tea boxes can have solid or transparent lids for product visibility.
