Out: Bad Hotel-Room Coffee. In: Gourmet Joe.

When checking in to my room at the Jury’s Inn in Limerick, Ireland recently, I noticed a coffee trolley labeled “Il Barista” in the lobby. It was adjacent to the reception desk and had a sleek espresso machine and mini-pastries. Mind you, there was no warm-blooded barista in sight. But my hotel, it seems, was latching on to an emerging trend. USA Today’s Roger Yu reports that access to quality coffee both inside guest rooms and in public hotel spaces is increasingly common.

Not only are hotels moving toward using higher quality beans—Holiday Inn will be all-Arabica by the end of June, Westin uses Starbucks beans and Starwood’s Four Points prefers Seattle’s Best Coffee—but many are also replacing the traditional glass carafe drip brewers in guests’ rooms with fancier versions that use coffee pods to deliver more flavorful coffee in single cup shots.

It’s clear that the motives are financially driven:

Coffee has some of highest profit margins among items sold in hotels. But by serving bland coffees and installing mediocre coffee makers in rooms, hotels have historically missed out on revenue as guests walked out of the hotel in the morning, scouring nearby cafes. A recent study by Starwood Hotels (HOT) showed that about half its coffee-drinking guests left its Four Points By Sheraton hotels to buy coffee.

The article quotes one Orlando man who says he’ll eschew hotel room coffee-makers until they can brew espresso.

I’m with my fellow Orlandoan there. I have yet to find a drip brew that can hold its own against a proper cappuccino fresh from a humming espresso machine.

But if ensuring the promotion of quality coffee culture in America means supporting this hotel trend, I’m more than happy to raise my mug in support.

 

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