JP2003099851A - Regular coffee manufacturing device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a customer coffee in a good quality finishing state served in a cup by suppressing the excessive bitterness component from mixing. SOLUTION: This regular coffee manufacturing device is so formed that prescribed amount of materials, or ground coffee beans, and hot water are fed to a pressure type coffee percolator 3 to percolate the coffee, the percolated coffee is sent from the percolator to a lead-out pipe 14 to be fed to the cup 17. At the end of a coffee percolation process, the coffee with strong bitterness formed in the coffee percolator is not fed to the cup but discharged outside the system to be disposed. This device is provided with a discharge pipe 19 branched downward in the middle of the coffee lead-out pipe 14 lead from the coffee percolator and an ordinary closed discharge valve 20 opening/closing the discharge pipe as discharge means, and at the end of the coffee percolation process, the discharge valve is opened to discharge the coffee with the strong bitterness to a ground bucket 21.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a regular coffee making apparatus applied to a cup type vending machine or the like.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As is well known, a cup type vending machine for selling regular coffee is equipped with a coffee extractor called a coffee brewer, and ground coffee beans (roasted coffee beans are ground in a mill). Grinded into a shape)
As a raw material, a certain amount of ground coffee beans and hot water are put into the extractor to extract coffee, and this is discharged from the extractor into a mixing bowl in the subsequent stage, and sugar, milk, etc. are added to the coffee with this mixing ball, After stirring, it is discharged and supplied to the cup carried out to the bend stage.

Recently, as a coffee extractor to be installed in a cup type vending machine, a coffee extractor capable of selling concentrated espresso coffee has appeared.
As one of the methods, an extraction container that combines a movable piston and a movable cylinder vertically is used.In the raw material charging process, the piston is pulled upwards and ground coffee beans are charged into the cylinder.In the subsequent extraction process, the piston is pushed into the cylinder. After lightly compressing the raw material, forcibly flowing hot water into the cylinder to extract the coffee, and when all this coffee is discharged from the extraction container, remove the connection with the piston and move the cylinder to the raw material discharge position, A coffee extractor having a structure in which the raw material residue remaining in the cylinder at this position is pushed up and discharged to the opening end face of the cylinder by the operation of the residue discharging piston built into the cylinder has been developed, and the same applicant as the present invention It has been previously proposed as Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-181572.

Next, FIG. 4 shows a conventional coffee selling system of a cup type automatic vending machine which employs the pressure type coffee extractor proposed above. In the figure, 1 is a raw material box containing coffee beans (roasted), 2 is a coffee mill for crushing coffee beans, 3 is a movable cylinder 3a having a filtration filter and a piston (not shown) for discharging slag,
Pressurized coffee extractor (coffee brewer) consisting of movable piston 3b and cylinder drive mechanism 3c, 4 is a hot water tank, 5 is a powder canister containing powdered raw materials (coffee additive) such as sugar and milk, and 6 is mixing. Ball, 7 Bend Stage, 8 Raw Material Shooter, 9 Hot Water Pump Connected to Hot Water Supply Pipe 10, 11 Hot Water Reheater, 12 Flow Meter, 13 Air Pump Branched to Hot Water Supply Pipe 10,
Reference numeral 14 is a coffee outlet pipe that is drawn from the coffee extractor 3 and is piped between the coffee extractor 3 and the mixing ball 6, and 15 is an outlet pipe 14
The reference numeral 16 denotes a coffee valve connected to the above, a reference numeral 16 denotes a beverage pipe provided between the mixing ball 6 and the bend stage 7, and a reference numeral 17 denotes a cup dispensed to the bend stage 7 from a cup supply mechanism (not shown).

With the above structure, when regular coffee is selected at the time of selling the beverage, a fixed amount of coffee beans are carried out from the raw material box 1 by a command from a sales control unit (not shown), and ground in a coffee mill 2 into powder. It is charged into the movable cylinder 3a (the movable piston 3b is raised to the open position) of the coffee extractor 3 via the raw material shooter 8. Then extractor 3
The cylinder 3a and the piston 3b are connected to each other, and the piston 3b is further pushed in to lightly compress the raw material contained in the cylinder.

Next, the hot water supply valve 4a of the hot water tank 4 is opened and the hot water pump 9 is started to pressurize the hot water discharged from the hot water tank 4 to the coffee extractor 3 through the hot water supply pipe 10 and the hot water reheater 11. To do. The amount of hot water supplied from the hot water tank 4 is counted by the flow meter 12, and the hot water supply valve 4a is controlled based on this count signal to supply a fixed amount of hot water for each sale. As a result, coffee is extracted while hot water passes through the cylinder 3a. After discharging a fixed amount of hot water from the hot water tank 4 and closing the hot water supply valve 4a, the air pump 13 is started to blow pressurized air into the hot water supply pipe 10 to remove the hot water remaining in the pipe line from the coffee extractor. 3, and the extracted coffee is sent from the extractor 3 to the outlet pipe 14.

In addition, the coffee valve 15 of the outlet pipe 14 is opened in accordance with the coffee extraction step, the coffee extracted by the extractor 3 is sent to the mixing ball 6 in the subsequent stage, and the extractor 3 is extracted by the mixing ball 6. Coffee sent from and sugar added from powder canister 5,
Beverage tube 1 after stirring with powdered raw materials such as milk
It is discharged and supplied to the cup 17 waiting on the bend stage 7 through 6. Then, when the coffee extraction process is completed, the slag discharge piston built in the cylinder 3a is operated,
After the raw material slag remaining in the cylinder 3a of the extractor 3 is pushed out from the open end of the cylinder and discharged into the slag recovery bucket 18, the state returns to the sales standby state again.

As a result, concentrated espresso coffee can be manufactured and sold in a short time cycle.

[0009]

By the way, while the above-mentioned pressure type coffee extractor can produce concentrated regular coffee (espresso coffee) in a short time, it contains a lot of bitterness components of coffee beans when it is supplied to the cup. It will be finished in a bittersweet coffee. On the other hand, research has revealed that consumers (customers) who use vending machines tend to avoid coffee that has a strong taste and bitterness.

Then, the inventors of the present invention investigated the bitterness components of the coffee extracted at each stage of the coffee extraction process with respect to various types of coffee extractors installed in the vending machine, and as the coffee extraction process progressed, The extraction of bitterness components tends to increase gradually, and in particular, with the above-mentioned pressure type extractor, coffee with a bitterness stronger than other extractors is extracted just before the end of extraction, and this is extracted from the first half to the end of the extraction process. It turned out to be an extremely bitter coffee when mixed with the coffee produced.

In view of the above, the present invention is based on the above-mentioned result of the study on the relationship between the progress of the coffee extraction process and the extraction of the bitterness component, and cups the coffee in a good and delicious finished state in which the transient mixture of the coffee bitterness component is suppressed. It is an object of the present invention to provide a regular coffee making device that can be supplied to customers and provided to customers.

[0012]

In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, ground coffee beans are used as a raw material and a fixed amount of the raw material and hot water are supplied to a coffee extractor to extract coffee. In a regular coffee making machine that delivers the prepared coffee from the extractor to the outlet pipe and supplies it to the cup, the coffee with a strong bitter component that is extracted and produced by the coffee extractor just before the end of the coffee extraction process is directly supplied to the cup. Without system outside (slag bucket)
A discharge means for disposing is provided in (claim 1), and as a concrete aspect of the discharge means, a discharge pipeline branched downward from the middle of the coffee discharge pipeline drawn from the coffee extractor, and the discharge pipeline. A normally closed discharge valve for opening and closing the passage is provided, and the discharge valve is opened just before the end of the coffee brewing process.

As described above, coffee having a high concentration of bitterness component remaining in the extractor just before the end of the coffee extraction process is not supplied to the cup as it is, but is discharged from the middle of the outlet pipe to the outside of the system ( By discharging it into the slag bucket, it is possible to supply the finished coffee with a strong bitterness component mixed to the cup to the customer. In the present invention, the coffee extractor is composed of an extraction container which is a combination of a piston and a cylinder, the raw material charged in the extraction container is compressed by a piston operation, and hot water is forced to flow through the container in this state to extract coffee. It has been confirmed that the pressurized coffee extractor (claim 3) exerts a high effect.

[0014]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG.
~ It demonstrates based on the Example shown in FIG. In the drawings of the embodiment, portions corresponding to those in FIG. 4 are denoted by the same reference numerals, and detailed description thereof will be omitted. That is, the coffee sales system and the coffee extractor 3 shown in FIG. 1 are basically the same as those in FIG. 4, but the coffee lead-out which is pulled out from the cylinder 3a of the coffee extractor 3 and is piped between the latter and the mixing ball 6 is provided. Regarding the pipe 14, a discharge pipe 19 is provided from a midpoint between the coffee extractor 3 and the coffee valve 15 via a three-way joint 14a.
Is branched downward, and a normally closed discharge valve 20 is connected to the discharge pipe 19, and the tip of the discharge pipe 19 is opened toward the slag bucket 21. The discharge pipe 1
The branch point of 9 (three-way joint 14a) is set lower than the installation height of the coffee valve 15, and when the discharge valve 20 is opened,
The coffee liquid remaining in the pipe between the coffee valve 15 and the three-way joint 14a is guided to the discharge pipe 19.

Here, a concrete structural example of the discharge valve 20 is shown in FIGS. 2 (a) and 2 (b). First, in the example of Fig. 2 (a),
The discharge valve 10 biases the fixed plate (patch plate) 22, the convex movable element 23, and the movable element 23 facing each other with the discharge tube 19 made of an elastic tube having flexibility and resilience interposed therebetween. And a fixed plate 22, and a spring 24 for closing the discharge pipe 19 in a crushed state, and a solenoid 25 for retracting the mover 23 from the solid line to the chain line position. Also,
In FIG. 2 (b), a three-way switching valve 26 is provided as a discharge valve 20 at the branch point between the outlet pipe 14 and the discharge pipe 19 so as to switch the coffee passage. The pipeline of 19 is closed, and the sales control unit (not shown)
I am trying to open it in response to a command from me.

Next, the extraction and sale operation of regular coffee in the sales system shown in FIG. 1 will be described with reference to the time chart shown in FIG. First, as described above, the operation process of the coffee extractor 3 that operates in response to a coffee sales command includes the three steps of charging raw materials, extracting coffee, and discarding slag. Then, in the raw material feeding step, a fixed amount of raw material (ground coffee beans) is fed into the cylinder 3a, and the piston 3b is connected to the cylinder 3a to lightly compress the raw material, and then the process proceeds to the next extraction step. , Hot water pump 9 is ON
Then, a fixed amount of hot water discharged from the hot water tank 4 is pressure-fed to the extractor 3 to start coffee extraction.

At the same time, the coffee valve 15 is opened (ON) and the coffee extracted by the extractor 3 is delivered to the mixing ball 6 in the subsequent stage through the outlet pipe 14. At this point, the discharge valve 20 is closed (OFF), and all the coffee is sent to the mixing ball 6. Further, the amount of hot water supplied from the hot water tank 4 is counted by the flow meter 12, and when a fixed amount of hot water flows, the hot water supply valve 4a is closed and the hot water pump 9 sends the hot water.
To the air pump 13 to pressurize the hot water remaining in the hot water supply pipe to the extractor 3 to continue the coffee extraction.
In the mixing ball 6, sugar and milk are dispensed according to the customer's choice, mixed with coffee, and then the beverage tube 1
It is supplied to the cup 17 carried out to the bend stage 7 through 6.

At the end of the preset coffee extraction process (when the extraction process is about to end, coffee having a strong bitterness component will be extracted, as described above). The discharge valve 20 is opened (ON) and the coffee valve 15 is closed (OF).
F). As a result, the coffee having a strong bitterness remaining in the cylinder of the extractor 3 at this time is discharged into the slag bucket 21 through the discharge pipe 19 and poured into the cup 17 without being sent to the mixing ball 6. The coffee will be in a good quality with no transient bitterness.

When the predetermined coffee extraction process is completed, the air pump 13 is stopped (OFF), the extractor 3 is transferred to the slag discarding process, and the coffee slag is dropped into the cylinder 3a in the slag discarding process. The liquid, including the liquid, remaining in the outlet pipe 14 is discharged through the discharge pipe 19, and when a series of sales operations is completed, the discharge valve 20 is closed and the state returns to the sales standby state. Note that the amount of coffee discharged outside the system through the discharge pipe 19 immediately before the end of the coffee extraction step is
The amount should be set so that the bitterness of the finished coffee is kept moderate and the loss of hot water is kept as small as possible.

[0020]

As described above, according to the present invention, a small amount of strong bitterness coffee produced in the extractor at the end of the coffee extraction process is branched from the coffee outlet pipe without being supplied to the cup. By disposing the coffee outside the system through the discharge pipe, it is possible to supply the coffee to the customer by supplying the coffee to the cup in a high quality finished state in which the mixture of strong bitterness components is suppressed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a coffee vending system diagram of a cup type vending machine according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2 shows a specific example of the discharge valve in FIG. 1, (a), (b)
Shows the structure of the discharge valve with different method

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a time chart of a coffee selling operation according to FIG.

FIG. 4 is a conventional coffee sales system diagram of a cup-type vending machine that employs a pressure coffee extractor.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 raw material box 3 Pressurized coffee extractor 4 hot water tank 4a Hot water supply valve 6 mixing balls 7 Bend stage 8 hot water pump 10 Hot water supply pipe 13 Air pump 14 Coffee outlet pipe 15 coffee valve 17 cups 19 discharge pipe 20 discharge valve 21 slag bucket

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. Ground coffee beans as a raw material, a fixed amount of raw material and hot water are supplied to a coffee extractor to extract coffee, and the extracted coffee is sent from the extractor to a discharge conduit and supplied to a cup. In the regular coffee manufacturing apparatus, the regular coffee is equipped with a discharging means for discarding the coffee having a strong bitter component generated in the coffee extractor to the outside of the system immediately before the completion of the coffee extraction process, without discharging the coffee to the cup. Manufacturing equipment. 2. The regular coffee brewing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the discharging means has a discharging pipeline branched downward from the middle of the coffee outlet pipeline drawn from the coffee extractor, and a regular opening / closing of the discharging pipeline. A regular coffee making apparatus, comprising a closed discharge valve, wherein the discharge valve is opened just before the end of the coffee extraction process. 3. The regular coffee brewing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the coffee extractor has an extraction container in which a piston and a cylinder are combined, and the raw material charged in the extraction container is compressed by the piston operation, and in this state. A regular coffee brewing apparatus, which is a pressurized coffee extractor for extracting coffee by forcibly flowing hot water into a container.