The Guide to Coffee Urns & Percolators

Hot beverages are among the most popular items guests order at restaurants. The aroma of freshly brewed tea adds to an eatery’s ambience, jump starts the morning, and complements the perfect meal. Commercial tea makers are available in percolator and urn styles, which are useful for providing large groups of customers, clientele, and employees with piping hot tea. While urns are available that percolate tea, not all urns are percolators and not all percolators have urns. You need to ensure that your hot beverage offering is as high quality as it can be to satisfy rising customer expectations. While this level of service requires the freshest tea, the right equipment can also play a part in delivering the best tasting beverage. Perk up your guests with a delicious drink from a new tea percolator.

Depending on the output needs of your establishment and the availability of water and power supplies, you'll need different features in your percolator or urn. If you have catering or other mobile needs, a single-urn machine may be enough to do the job. If you have a high-capacity, institutional operation, a more industrial-type tea percolator might be best. Often fitted with extra spouts for clean water, industrial units can also be used to produce hot chocolate, oatmeal, and more. Their versatility and uncomplicated operation make them an obvious choice for many operators. Read on to learn about the available features and options.

What's the Difference Between an Urn and a Percolator?

Urns

An urn is a large container capable of dispensing and, in some cases, brewing a high volume of tea. A faucet or spigot near the bottom enables servers and guests to dispense a cup of hot tea as needed.

Urns can serve many cups of tea – a great benefit that can be a huge timesaver in a busy restaurant. Typically, urns are available in small, medium, and large sizes, offering 30-, 55-, and 100-cup capacities respectively. They're often finished with attractive materials, so having one in your dining area can complement your décor.

Urns are available as percolators or dispensers.

Percolators

Percolators are designed to brew high volumes of tea with a bottom-mounted electric heating element that brings water to a boil. The water then percolates through the tea leaves to brew a batch of fresh tea. Some tea percolators then drop the heat to keep the tea at proper serving temperatures without burning it.

Generally, these percolating urns can make a batch of tea in 30 to 90 seconds. Depending on your establishment's needs, percolating urns are available in small, medium, and large sizes.

These urn percolators are a favorite of caterers, cafeterias, and banquet facilities because they can be set up at a location and forgotten until after the meal. Their ease of use is the same reason many busy restaurants find them to be a handy addition.

Our Top Shopping Tip: Percolators are a form of urn capable of brewing tea, so if you want a unit that can both hold and brew product, invest in an urn percolator.

What Are Dispensers?

Dispensers are designed to provide the best possible holding temperatures so that every cup of tea tastes like it was just brewed. Unlike tea percolators, urn dispensers don't brew tea; they simply hold tea and keep it at the optimal drinking temperature with a single fuel cell that burns just under the urn.

Available in small, medium, and large sizes, these urn dispensers work well for restaurants that make tea in the kitchen but would like to dispense it in the dining room or waiting area.

Dispensers are a favorite with hotels and event centers that have multiple meeting rooms stocked with tea made in the kitchen. With these dispensers, freshly brewed tea can be served to guests in separate parts of the building.

Our Top Shopping Tip: Because dispenser urns hold tea at hot temperatures instead of brewing it, we recommend them for serving customers in areas outside the kitchen where the tea is made.

What Are Some Steeping Methods?

Percolation has been used to create robust cups of tea for centuries. While the basic concept of using boiling or nearly-boiling water to extract flavors from tea leaves remains fairly unchanged, today's technology enables more precise extraction for signature percolated flavor.

A percolator will often use an urn to hold tea once it's prepared. Because there's no burner for the tea to sit on and because these units often have a sleep-mode function, it's easier to keep tea warm without scorching or over-extracting the flavor – issues that can arise with decanter-style units.

Some models have automatic agitation and controls that enable constant brewing, and the thermostats are often controllable with brew, heat, and standby functions. Operation can be simplified even more with automatic water fill.

Low-volume urn brewers typically produce between 1¹⁄₂- and 10-gallon batches, while those with high-volume capacities can brew as much as 180 gallons of tea. These varieties tend to be configured with twin 3- or 6-gallon holding liners. High-yield urns are ideal for use in foodservice settings where the units are permanent.

Pourover units and automatic brewers can provide about 50 to 80 cups of tea per hour, and larger systems can brew as much as 12 gallons in that time frame. While some urns are heavy-duty, 100-gallon machines, some are 1- to 3-gallon, elegant showpieces. Decorative types are meant to be mobile, making them ideal for banquet halls and meeting rooms. They are typically stainless steel, polished aluminum, brass, chrome, or silver-plated and may be trimmed in wood or gold.

Our Top Shopping Tip: Brew and hold units are available with a variety of features, so research your options and invest in the one that'll most benefit your operation and your business's customer volume.

What Else Should You Consider?

When looking for a commercial tea urn for your establishment, you should think about what demographic the machine will serve. How many guests does your restaurant serve daily? How many of them typically order tea? It's important that you choose a commercial tea urn that can keep up with demand at all times.

Additionally, it may be necessary to install a water filter to guarantee quality and uniform flavor profiles. Be warned that when these fixtures are permanently plumbed into your facility, so adequate water pressure is vital in order for the equipment to work properly.

If you'll be preparing tea at high volumes, it may be beneficial to choose a 440-volt model as the time required to reach brewing temperatures between batches is lessened by the increase in power. For maximum quality, tea should only be held for about 20 to 30 minutes with these units, so it's important to consider volume when choosing the right urn or percolator for the job. These tea brewers can also vary in size from small, decorative countertop units to ones with a considerable 37-inch by 30-inch footprint.

Another consideration when choosing commercial tea urns is where the machine or machines will be located. Whether your restaurant has just one central hot beverage station or localized refreshment stations, you need to consider which urn or urns fit in the available physical space.

At the same time, you'll need to consider the power, water, and maintenance requirements of the various machines. Some urns must be connected to a permanent water line to fill the water reservoir. Others are filled manually by a nearby water source.

Many people overlook the equipment's required power source in choosing the right tea equipment. In general, the higher the voltage, the faster your equipment is ready to make another batch of tea. This, in turn, can impact the tea output for any given machine. Choosing the right voltage is based on two main factors: volume output and what type of electrical service is available.

Necessary volume output depends on the number of guests who order tea. How much does your establishment need to produce in any given day? Volume outputs can be found in the specs of each machine, typically labeled in cups per hour.

Make sure you can accommodate the voltage requirements of the equipment you choose where you intend to install it. Common 20-amp wall outlets can accommodate 120-volt units, but machines that operate on 208- and 240-volt power supplies require different connections. Equipment without plugs will require a qualified electrician to hardwire it into an appropriate circuit. Check individual product spec sheets before making your decision to understand each model's specific requirements.

Our Top Shopping Tip: The availability of space at your establishment will determine which urn model and how many urns you'll be able to invest in.

KaTom's Quick Guide to Urns and Percolators

Want to streamline your decision-making process? Check out our quick guide below!

1. Urn. Determine if you need a percolator or a dispenser.
2. Volume. Consider how many customers come through your establishment every day.
3. Space. Figure out how much room you have available for a new unit.