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A tea and coffee station sounds like a small thing to plan. In practice, it’s one of the most used spots in any office. People head there first thing in the morning, during meetings, before calls, between tasks, and whenever they need a break from their screen. If it works well, nobody notices. If it doesn’t, everybody notices.
This guide walks you through how to set up a tea and coffee station that actually works for your team. We’ll cover where to put it, what you need, what you don’t need, and the practical details that most offices get wrong the first time round. The advice here applies whether you’re setting up a station from scratch in a new office or upgrading one that’s no longer fit for purpose.
Planning the Location: Where to Put It
Location matters more than most people think. A well-placed station becomes a natural gathering point where people bump into each other, have quick conversations, and leave feeling better than when they arrived. A badly placed one creates queues, blocks corridors, and annoys everyone within earshot.
What to look for in a spot
You want somewhere with enough space for two or three people to stand comfortably without anyone feeling crowded. You also want access to power, water if possible, and a bin nearby. A corner of the kitchen is ideal in most offices. If you don’t have a dedicated kitchen, a wide section of counter in a staff break area works well too.
Avoid placing a coffee station directly next to someone’s desk, in a main walkway, or in a meeting room that gets regular use. The noise of a bean-to-cup grinder, the chatter of people waiting for a cup, and the occasional spilled drink all become problems when the station is too close to where people are trying to work.
Thinking about access and flow
Watch how people move through your office for a day. Where do they naturally pass? Where do they stop? A good coffee station sits on a natural path, so getting to it doesn’t feel like a detour. It also has enough room around it that people can wait for a drink without blocking anyone trying to pass through.
If your team is spread across multiple floors, consider whether one station is enough or whether you need a smaller secondary setup on another floor. In offices with more than around 40 people, a single machine on the ground floor often creates queues at peak times. Adding a smaller machine elsewhere spreads the demand and keeps things moving.
Creating a Complete Workplace Refreshment Station
A proper workplace refreshment station doesn’t need much, but what you do have needs to be right. Here’s a practical checklist of what most offices actually need.
The machine or machines
This is the heart of the station. Most offices go with a commercial bean-to-cup machine because it covers espresso, Americano, cappuccino, latte, flat white, macchiato, and hot chocolate from one unit. That covers the vast majority of drink requests in a typical workplace. Our Cuco 50, Cuco 100, and Cuco 200 machines all serve this range, and the right model depends on your team size and daily cup volume.
Coffee is the centre of the station, but it is rarely the whole of it, and Cuco supply the rest of the canteen too. A dedicated hot chocolate machine takes the pressure off the coffee machine in offices where chocolate drinks are popular. A hot water boiler gives tea drinkers instant boiling water at the right temperature, which neither a kettle nor a coffee machine’s hot water tap can match at volume. A multifunction water tap covers chilled, sparkling and boiling water from a single point, which frees up counter space and removes the fridge full of plastic bottles. A Bevi flavoured water machine adds still and sparkling flavoured options for people who want something other than a hot drink. An ice machine earns its place the first warm week of the year. None of this is essential on day one, and many offices run perfectly well on a single bean-to-cup machine. The point is that you can add to the station later without bringing in a second supplier.
Tea supplies
Ireland drinks a lot of tea, and it would be a mistake to build a coffee station without thinking about tea drinkers. A basic tea setup needs a source of properly hot water (more on that in a moment), a decent selection of teabags, and somewhere to put used teabags that isn’t the kitchen sink.
For the tea selection, a small range works better than a huge one. A standard black tea that most people drink every day, one or two herbal options like peppermint and chamomile, and a green tea covers almost everyone. Offices that try to stock 15 different teas end up with half of them going stale.
Cups, mugs, and consumables
You have three options here and they’re not mutually exclusive. Ceramic mugs are the best option for regular use. They feel proper, they don’t create waste, and people tend to look after them. The downside is someone has to wash them. Most offices solve this with a dishwasher, which pays for itself quickly once you factor in the cost of disposables.
Reusable takeaway cups are useful for people moving between meetings or working from different spots. Compostable cups are worth keeping on hand for visitors and for days when the dishwasher is full. Both of these are available as part of our Cuco range, so you don’t need to sort out a separate supplier.
Milk and milk alternatives
Every Cuco machine comes with a milk fridge included, so there is no need to buy an undercounter unit separately. The only reason to add a second fridge is to hold stock, and for a team of 20 to 40 people that is rarely necessary. Keeping the milk at the station also saves people walking across the office every time they want to top up their coffee.
On milk alternatives, ask your team what they actually use rather than guessing. Oat milk has become the most common alternative in Irish offices, followed by almond and soya. Stocking one or two alternatives covers most needs. Buying five varieties means most of them will go off before anyone finishes them.
The small stuff that matters
A few practical items that offices regularly forget:
- A bin close to the station, ideally one that separates general waste, recyclables, and food waste. Nobody wants to walk across the office to throw out a coffee cup.
- Sugar, sweeteners, and stirrers somewhere accessible but not cluttering the counter.
- A cloth or roll of kitchen paper for wiping up spills. Spills happen. A station without something to clean them up looks neglected quickly.
- A small tray or mat under the machine to catch drips.
- A surface wipe or spray that’s appropriate for food contact areas.
Machine Options: What Actually Works for Offices
There are three broad categories of machine worth considering, and they’re not equivalent. Here’s a quick comparison.
| Machine type | Best for | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial bean-to-cup | Most offices. Covers every standard drink, serves consistent quality, simple to use. | Needs proper servicing to keep quality up. A neglected machine quickly produces poor drinks. |
| Instant coffee setup | Very small offices (under 10 people) or as a backup. | Drink quality is a long way below bean-to-cup. Most teams quickly feel the difference. |
| Hot water boiler | Offices with a lot of tea drinkers, or as an addition to a coffee machine. | Doesn’t make coffee. Best used alongside a bean-to-cup, not instead of one. |
For almost every office we work with in Ireland, a commercial bean-to-cup machine ends up being the centre of the station. It handles coffee, hot chocolate, and hot water for tea from one unit, which keeps the station tidy and the setup simple. A dedicated hot water boiler can be added later if tea demand is particularly high.
Making Tea Work Alongside Coffee
Coffee stations often forget about tea drinkers until after the station is set up, and then the tea provision feels like an afterthought. It doesn’t have to.
The easiest way to serve tea properly alongside coffee is to use the hot water tap on your bean-to-cup machine. All our machines have one, and the water comes out at the right temperature for most teas. For offices where tea volume is high, adding a dedicated hot water boiler is a better option. A boiler delivers instant hot water at a proper temperature, handles higher volumes than a coffee machine’s hot water tap, and takes the pressure off the main machine during morning rushes.
Keep the tea supplies close to the hot water source. A small storage container or wooden box on the counter works well. Group similar teas together: black teas in one section, herbal in another. A teaspoon or two on a saucer avoids people hunting through drawers.
One thing worth thinking about:
If your office has a lot of tea drinkers, the hot water demand can actually exceed the coffee demand. That’s worth factoring in when you decide whether a single machine is enough or whether a boiler makes sense.
Our Cuco Water Boiler is designed exactly for this kind of setup.
Hygiene and Health & Safety: The Practical Side
Any space where food and drink are served needs a baseline of hygiene, and a coffee station is no exception. This doesn’t need to be complicated, but it does need to be consistent.
Daily cleaning
The counter, the machine exterior, and the milk fridge all benefit from a quick wipe-down at the end of each day. Somebody on the team usually takes this on informally, or it can be added to a cleaning contractor’s scope if you have one. Either way, the standard is simple: the station should look clean when people arrive each morning.
Machine maintenance
This is where things get easier with a rental arrangement. Every Cuco rental comes with weekly on-site servicing from our own Cuco Quality Team. They look after the machine, carry out the necessary checks, and make sure everything is ready for daily use. That takes the main hygiene burden off your team. If you’re buying a machine outright, you’ll need to arrange this separately, and it matters more than most people realise. A bean-to-cup machine that isn’t descaled properly develops taste issues and eventually breaks down.
Food safety basics
Milk should be stored at or below 5 degrees Celsius. The fridge should be checked periodically to confirm it’s hitting that temperature. Open milk cartons should be dated and used within a few days, or replaced. Used teabags and coffee grounds should go in a food waste or general waste bin, not down the sink where they’ll cause plumbing issues over time.
None of this requires a formal food safety certification for a typical office setup, but following these basics keeps things sensible. Offices in certain regulated sectors (healthcare, food production, pharma) have stricter requirements,and the machine choice itself may need to meet specific hygiene certifications. If that applies to you, it’s worth raising when you’re specifying the setup.
Managed or Self-Managed: Which Approach Fits
Every coffee station is either managed by someone on your team or managed by a supplier. There’s no third option. The question is which arrangement suits your office.
Self-managed setups
Someone on your team buys the machine, orders the beans, arranges servicing, handles repairs, and sorts out any issues. This works in very small offices where coffee usage is low and the person doing it doesn’t mind the overhead. It falls apart in medium-sized and larger offices because the person managing it gets drawn into a steady stream of small tasks that aren’t part of their actual job. When they leave or change roles, the whole thing lands on someone else.
The other issue with self-managed setups is that most people aren’t trained to service a commercial bean-to-cup machine. The machine works fine for a while, then gradually deteriorates as scale builds up and parts wear. Most self-managed offices don’t notice until the coffee is already bad or the machine has broken down.
Managed setups
A supplier handles the machine, the maintenance, the beans, and the consumables. Your team gets to focus on work. At Cuco, our rental arrangements include weekly on-site servicing from the Cuco Quality Team, plus restocking, repairs, and support. If something goes wrong, you call us and we sort it.
For most Irish offices, this is the more sensible option. The cost is predictable, the quality stays consistent, and nobody on your team ends up accidentally owning the coffee operation. It also scales: as your team grows, we can switch or add machines without you having to re-tender the whole setup.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much space do I need for a tea and coffee station?
A compact station with a single bean-to-cup machine, a small fridge, and storage for tea and consumables needs about 1.5 to 2 metres of counter space. Larger stations with a second machine or boiler need more. Most office kitchens have enough room without needing to be redesigned.
Do I need a plumbed water connection?
It helps, but it isn’t always essential. Some of our machines can run off a refillable tank, which means no plumbing work is needed. Plumbed machines are more convenient for busy offices because nobody has to remember to refill anything. When we visit for the free tasting, we’ll advise on which setup works for your space.
How many teabags and coffee beans should I keep on hand?
As a rough guide, stock around two weeks of usage based on team size. For an office of 20 people, that’s roughly 2 kilograms of coffee beans and around 200 to 300 teabags. Our weekly servicing visits keep the machine topped up, and we deliver more coffee when you need stock rather than to a fixed schedule, so you are not holding a large buffer or tracking levels yourself.
Can I set up a coffee station without a dishwasher?
Yes, but it’s easier with one. If you’re relying on handwashing, the station will need a sink close by. Alternatively, offer a mix of ceramic mugs for people who’ll clean up after themselves and reusable or compostable cups for those who won’t.
What about offices where employees work hybrid or part-time?
Hybrid offices need to size the station for their busiest days, not their average days. If you have 40 people registered but only 25 typically in on any given day, size for 25 with some headroom. Remember that the busiest days (usually Tuesday to Thursday) will push numbers higher.
Should I get professional help setting this up?
For a simple station with a domestic machine, you can probably do it yourself. For anything involving a commercial bean-to-cup machine, it’s worth having a specialist handle the installation. At Cuco, we start with a site survey. We assess the space, talk through how your team works, and recommend the machine that fits. You then get a free one-week trial to test it in your own office before committing to anything. Once you decide, we deliver, install, commission, and train your team on how to use the machine as standard. Your setup is ready to use the same day.
Ready to Set Up Your Office Coffee Station?
A good tea and coffee station doesn’t take long to plan once you know what you need. The harder part is getting the right machine for your space and making sure it stays running once it’s in.
That’s where we come in. At Cuco Coffee, we work with offices across Ireland to set up and manage coffee stations from the ground up. We’ll visit your workplace, bring a machine for a free tasting, and recommend a setup that fits your team and your space. Every rental includes weekly servicing from the Cuco Quality Team, restocking, and support. You focus on the work. We’ll look after the coffee.
Call us on +353 1 526 7433 or get in touch to book a free coffee tasting at your office.
