QUESTION: What kind of coffee machine does Circle K use? I’ve started getting coffee there and it’s a machine that makes one coffee at a time and it’s actually really good! – Annette J
ANSWER: Circle K. has definitely improved their coffee game. They upgraded their machines a few years back. Instead of brewing a big pot that gets stale after an hour and has to be poured out and re-brewed, wasting a lot of coffee and requiring a lot of labor, they switched to high end Swiss Schaerer Coffee Art C machines that grind and brew individual cups at a time. This coffee maker is one of the bean-to-cup machines and prepares fresh coffee with a serving size of one cup at a time.
These are very high quality commercial coffee machines and not designed for home use, unfortunately. Unless you’d like to spend around $13,000 on a machine that can make up to 70 or 80 coffees per hour!
Other convenience stores and gas stations like Racetrac use these very good commercial machines.
At the Circle K I recently visited to research the answer to your question, the machine was loaded with three different coffee beans. You could choose from two types of regular coffee and they had a decaf as well. There was 100% Columbian (described as a darker roast profile), House Blend (which is more of a medium roast), and Decaf.
It was my fourth coffee of the day, so I decided to try the Decaf. It is quite good, and also a medium roast.
So if you find yourself craving a good cup of coffee and there’s a Circle K nearby, you can actually get a respectable coffee there. And it’s pretty cheap too, where a large 20 ounce coffee only cost me $1.69, the best value around.
Read more about how Circle K turned to individual grind and brew machines.