We’re still sorting through the research here at the Nexus Drinks offices, but there’ve been a whole flurry of studies on coffee recently – so we thought we’d look through them and give you a quick report on the benefits Nexus Drinks can offer your workforce.

Coffee Can Cut Down Type 2 Diabetes

Long-term studies show that coffee drinkers are less likely to develop Type 2 Diabetes. The results of this research came as a slight surprise to the team that carried it out, but reduced blood sugar and insulin levels cut down key risk factors. Please note – once you have Type 2 Diabetes, coffee isn’t a cure-all on its own.

Coffee Can Extend Your Life

Studies from Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Southampton have all recently linked coffee to preventing liver cancer – or purely to extending your life; the Cambridge study suggests that your risk of dying early is 12% lower at one coffee a day and 18% lower at three.

Cambridge Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter translates that to around 9 minutes of extra life per cup of coffee on average.

There Are Other Benefits

A recent summary at authoritynutrition.com sums it up: There are a baker’s dozen of under-recognised health benefits emerging from research into coffee drinking, from reducing the risk of Parkinson’s and cirrhosis to making some cancers less likely.

Not only that, but in a typical Western diet your coffee is your biggest and best source of antioxidants – so as well as long-term preservation of life and quality of life, you’re getting a heap of smaller benefits to each day, which all adds up.

There are a lot of reasons why the various KLIX coffee machines are as popular across the UK as they are. The amazing range of products, from hot and cold drinks to soups, all from Britain’s favourite brands, is a high spot; the purity of the water they use after it’s been through the BRITA filter is another major benefit.

The KLIX in-cup system allows for a total preservation of flavour, so that whenever you hit the button for your hot drink of choice, you can be confident that you’ll be getting the absolute maximum flavour and aroma in your cup.

But there’s one upside that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough – and it also comes from the in-cup system.

Say Goodbye to Clean-Up

If there’s a downside to having a hot drinks machine in your workplace, it’s that your team have to take time out regularly to clean the machine, check the spill tray, and make sure that there’s no build-up of coffee in the nozzle that might contaminate your tea – or, far worse, soup flavour messing with your coffee.

But the in-cup design means that the drink is made in the cup, the flavour comes from the cup – that nothing but pure filtered water runs in the machine itself.

This doesn’t just cut clean-up in half – it practically does away with it entirely. Going with a Klix machine rather than something else really opens up your options – and cuts down on busywork.

Back in 2012, the University of Pittsburgh carried out a study in left-hemisphere processing of positive words.

You’re probably thinking some version, right now, of “So who cares?”

But the study was on how caffeine can affect the brain’s language processing. Faster language processing means faster problem solving. It means more efficient communication with clients or customers.

It means – mana from heaven – shorter and more effective meetings.

A Cup and a Half

Around one and a half coffee cups’ worth of caffeine in your system means a significant speed boost in understanding reading, memorising lists, short-term memory and even solving logic problems.

What that means in practice is that a typical business owner sees his team hit their stride properly late in the morning or even during their lunch break, but any workplace where the coffee’s easily brewed by a quick visit to a hot drinks machine can expect an earlier peak, as your team grab a cup as they arrive and another one an hour or so in.

If they have their first cup of the day before their commute, you might see them reach that peak performance as early as half an hour into the working day, and having a coffee machine on standby will help them maintain the fuel they need throughout; no brewing roster, no kettle time, and no long, complicated lists and money collections while running to the nearest Starbucks or Costa.

Your team doesn’t just save time, but the time they have is also spent more efficiently. There’s nothing better than that.

Make Office Hours Count

One of the best ways to build up the effectiveness and productivity of your team is to make sure that it’s always easy to choose to top up your caffeine intake.

If you’d like to know more about matching your coffee machine to your workplace, we’ve produced some useful guides and will be happy to talk to you in more detail – we’re available on 0800 3357 500.

Winter is well and truly upon us now, and with time taken out of everyone’s busy morning schedule to de-ice the car most mornings, dark skies making waking up slower, and all the rest, a fine cup of strong coffee with a rich flavour and a hearty aroma on arrival at work (and at intervals through the day to keep the chill out) is never more sought after than in the Christmas season.

Still, while we won’t deny that an upgrade to the latest coffee machine – a FLAVIA 500, say, or a Keurig, if not trialling a Jura bean-to-cup machine – is a great Christmas present for your staff to keep them motivated and happy into the new year, this is also a time when we at Nexus Drinks like to look back on a busy year, helping our customers get the rich taste they crave and keeping colleagues their customers happy up and down the country in offices, pubs, factories and showrooms.

It’s been a busy year and a lot has changed, good and bad alike, for all of us as the year’s gone forward, but as we reach the end of it, there’s one thing we absolutely have to admit; it wouldn’t have been the same without all of you.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish each and every one of our customers a Merry Christmas – and a happy new year into the bargain! We look forward to continuing to supply you with the best tasting coffee from the best machines on the market next year.

Time to Think It Over

Off the back of the hottest July on record and a similarly scorching August, it may seem too early to be thinking about winter.

On the other hand, here at Nexus Drinks we remember that getting our new office fans back in April ahead of the rush turned out to be a great idea – because once the temperature really started to hit those dizzying heights, they just flew off the shelves.

Did your office miss out? Were you trapped in a showroom without air conditioning? Turning it around for a moment, are you worried that your warehouse breakroom will be freezing in the winter months? Is your pub ready to serve winter warmers to those who want them, or are you going to be hoping to make do with cold drinks alone?

Back to School

They don’t call the start of a new school year Winter Term for nothing. As September starts we seem a comfortable four months from Christmas – but it’s the perfect time to address your winter beverage needs.

Here at Nexus Drinks we know that coffee is a workplace staple all year round, but we also know that it’s taken much more seriously and brewed much more often in winter months – and if you’ve been wondering whether you should upgrade to the beautiful aromas and full flavours available for FLAVIA or Klix coffee machines, this is the perfect opportunity.

Make your company’s coffee stand out from the rest this winter. Get in touch today and we can provide the perfect coffee machine for you.

Whether you work in an office, factory, retail showroom or restaurant, there’s a pretty good chance that your coffee break is one of the ways you manage your day – and one of the ways you make sure you clear your workload on time.

But how can you make the most of your daily caffeine intake? When you’re putting together your plan for the working day, take these tips into account:

Factor in the Time to Take Effect

Caffeine begins to take effect about 10 minutes after first being consumed, with a peak effect about 45 minutes un. For many of us, our pre-commute morning coffee is just enough to power us through the commute, and a warm, aromatic cup of a good coffee on arrival at the workplace will get you back up to speed.

Similarly, if you start your cup ten minutes before the end of any break, you’ll get the maximum benefit when it comes to getting the day’s work handled smoothly and effectively.

Watch the Hours

Believe it or not, the giant mug isn’t the way to go; Studies have shown that a smaller cup’s worth of caffeine about once every hour creates a smoother caffeine ‘curve’ through the day, keeping you more up and energised for most of it without setting you up to crash later on.

This kind of steady performance makes your days much easier to handle, as you’ll never be thrown a curve ball when you’re in a slump.

The good news is that this fits very nicely with the desired cup sizes for many of the coffee machines we offer, including the FLAVIA and Klix systems – so it’s more natural to get the right size with those, but it’s also something to think about with WMF and Jura machines which have more flexibility.

To Sweeten or Not?

Honestly, here at Nexus Drinks we believe you should sweeten if that makes the flavour better for you and avoid sweetening if it doesn’t. Still, there’s some evidence from the scientists that caffeine and sugar together has much more effect than either one on their own; the effects they have on your brain almost seem designed to combine.

If you’re really on deadline crunch, maybe it’s worth adding some sugar even if you don’t normally – or failing that, how about one of these popular substitutes?

Just having a FLAVIA,  Kenco Singles or Keurig machine on hand provides a great coffee experience. However, if you want to add a little something extra special, there are a few special extras you can keep in stock by the machine.

Have you ever tried…

Coconut Oil

Take a teaspoon of coconut oil and stir it into your cup for a silky-smooth extra flavour that will set your coffee apart from everyone else’s. It’s got a great energy payoff, too!

Cinnamon Rather Than Sugar

You can make your cup a little healthier without cutting the sweetness by swapping a spoonful of sugar for a pinch of cinnamon. With autumn almost on us and winter ahead, the extra hit of warmth from a little cinnamon in there is especially appreciated.

Cardamom

While coconut oil and cinnamon can both be used to give your coffee a little extra pep, cardamom will actually slightly reduce the effective caffeine hit – so if you take more cups than many, a little bit of cardamom will make it easier on you while adding that spiced Eastern flavour. Well worth a try if you haven’t before!

Maple Syrup

A splash is all that’s needed – but the distinctive taste of the maple means that as well as giving you a sweeter cup, you’ll get a little extra flavour. We think this one’s particularly good for showroom coffees – something to make the potential customer’s drink stand out from the crowd.

A Dash of Vanilla Extract

Almost everyone’s heard of vanilla coffee these days; it’s one of the more common requests for flavour at coffee shops – but nothing’s stopping you stirring it into your cup straight out of the Keurig, and the flavour is just as good!

Clear Honey

Another non-sugar sweetener, a dab of clear honey does less to change the flavour profile of your coffee but does deliver sweetness throughout the drink instead of the ‘initial hit’ that you typically get from sugar. Just be careful if you go this way – unlike maple syrup bottles, honey jars are not designed for pouring!

Nearly thirty years after the Gold Blend Couple first became a part of every Briton’s life in the oft-imitated series of adverts that drew a nation of tea drinkers into the lives of two coffee-loving romantics, the facts don’t lie; 2.1 billion cups of coffee are consumed in Britain every year, and only 874 million cups of tea.

As much as ten years of adverts equating coffee with romance will have played a part in creating the coffee generation, franchises like Starbucks and Costa Coffee have also played a role. Today, coffee is more widely available than ever before across the UK and in greater variety. It’s possible now to educate yourself in different beans and blends no matter where in Britain you live, and that’s played a major role in the increasing popularity of coffee.

Another major factor, however, is that coffee machines have developed to the point where they deliver high quality coffee with a full-bodied aroma and a belt of coffee flavour to go with the caffeine, making them a top choice in drinks machines for offices, factory breakrooms, and showrooms alike.

At Nexus Drinks we’ve watched a nation of coffee drinkers discover the smooth taste of Klix and Flavia, Jura and WMF, and we’ve been as happy as each and every satisfied customer among them to see more and more of our customers discovering just how well machine-brewed coffee can compete with the barista experience now.

But help is also at hand for those of you who prefer a satisfying British cup of tea to an Americano or a macchiato – and from much the same places! Both Klix and FLAVIA systems offer plenty of options to those who want a cup of tea quickly, including well-known brands that have already earned our nation’s love.