Pour-Over Coffee Robotic Arm Makes Debut at Beijing Winter Olympics Venue: Will Future Baristas Be Replaced by Robots?

As the domestic test events for Olympic ice hockey enter the countdown phase, Beijing's Wukesong Sports Center is methodically preparing every aspect of its operations. Because of the pandemic, this Olympic venue has introduced various technologies and robots for logistics and material distribution, minimizing person-to-person contact while fully meeting the needs of the closed-loop environment.

Beyond the logistics robots, the venue has thoughtfully prepared "Big White" robots to make freshly ground, hand-brewed coffee on site. The arrival of "Big White" ensures that professional coffee-making services can be provided in a contactless way.

The robot is a collaboration between OrionStar, Deb Group, and Gongboshi. It uses self-developed full-chain AI technology to faithfully reproduce every detailed step of hand-brewed coffee. According to reports, it can operate both its left and right robotic arms at once. The left arm handles the filter cup, filter paper, and sharing pot, as well as weighing and grinding the beans. The right arm handles brewing and serving. Finally, the two arms work together to clean the brewing equipment and the counter.

In most people's minds, machine brewing is simple, often just injecting a fixed amount of hot water into ground coffee. But "Big White" is different from the machine brewing we have known before. It replicates the details of hand-brewed coffee in a stable way, including blooming, segmented small-flow circular pouring, and swirl-shaking the coffee in the pot for even mixing. Before serving, it also checks the coffee concentration, ensuring consistent quality from the first cup to the hundredth.

Hand-brewing robots are no longer particularly novel; robot coffee shops and kiosks have been appearing domestically and internationally since last year. These robots each have their strengths, from simply adding milk to coffee to creating latte art, from monotonously injecting water into grounds to fully replicating the extraction steps of hand-brewed coffee. This reflects that more and more people have become particular about their coffee, and that the industry is chasing stable output for hand-brewed coffee.

Finally, we wish all Chinese Olympic athletes great results. Go for it!

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

A robot can replicate the motion of a pour-over, but the flavor still comes from the beans. For the brewing style the robot performs, with segmented pouring and a center water stream, FrontStreet Coffee favors beans that show off aroma and acidity. The light-roasted Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Gudingding is a gentle place to start, with citrus, berry, and floral notes and a soft, green-tea sweetness.

For a more dramatic cup, the Ethiopia Huakui bursts with tropical fruit, from strawberry and passion fruit to jackfruit and lychee, with strong sweetness and very little bitterness. And for a truly special experience, the Panama Emerald Estate Red Label Geisha is legendary for its elegant jasmine aroma and delicate citrus, bergamot, and black-tea flavors, with a clean, transparent body and a long, layered finish.