Melbourne invention ‘Caffe Assist’ allows baristas to make the perfect coffee every time

Melburnians love to refer to their city as the world’s coffee capital. But with this “game-changing” invention, the coffee could get even better.

A Melbourne inventor — who revolutionised the global casino industry — is now making his mark on Australia’s bustling cafe scene, creating a machine that makes “perfect coffee” every time.

With the push of a button, Bill Purton developed the technology that can consistently heat and texture milk to a set temperature, freeing up busy baristas otherwise bogged down monitoring the process by hand.

The “Caffe Assist” can be hooked up to any coffee machine and cleans itself after every use, with the barista only needing to pour the milk into the cup.

But Melbourne’s rich cohort of expert baristas need not fear for their jobs, with Mr Purton adamant his machine was built to “free up” workers bogged down on perfecting the temperature of the milk.

Bill Purton invented Caffe Assist which automatically steams and textures milk, heating it to a consistent temperature every time Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

“It means the barista can talk to customers, allowing them to relax. If you see the barista manually doing the milk no one can interrupt them, they may wave at you and that’s about it because they’re so focused,” he said.

“With this they can comfortably turn around, let it clean itself and be ready to pour and put on the next one.

“We’ve actually found businesses who use this can increase sales by 7 to 10 per cent by allowing the barista to upsell food items.”

Mr Purton — who sketched the design on a napkin while waiting 25 minutes for a coffee — said the “high turnover” of staff in the hospitality industry motivated him to create the machine that can be used by “all levels of employees”.

“I know I would go to a coffee shop and if a particular barista wasn’t there I wouldn’t go in,” he said.

“You train someone to create the perfect milk or the perfect coffee but another shop would offer them an extra $5 an hour and off they went to another cafe. So you lose that certainty and continuity and the coffee becomes patchy.

“You may not be able to make the nice patterns but it’s consistency and quality will be the same.

“The person operating the machine can be anyone which is ideal if the regular barista is away.”

Bill Purton (left) and Mario Colaiacovo (right) from Caffe Assist with their revolutionary machine that automatically steams and textures milk Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

But the biggest positive, according to its inventor, was baristas being reassured their milk would be heated to a consistent temperature every time.

“People think their hands are accurate in respect to temperature which is flawed. Because what ‘too hot’ is can be different for every person,” he said.

“It’s very flexible and can be customised based on what customers want.

“Sometimes you’ll get a coffee and think it’s bad when the coffee itself is fine but it’s the milk that’s not right.”

The machines have been added to Brunetti’s on Lygon St, Carlton to help its workers who make nearly 30,000 coffees every week.

The Caffe Assist is not Mr Purton’s only successful invention.

In the late 1990s he revolutionised the operation of casinos globally when he created the world’s first card scanning machines, saving dealers the tedious task of manually sorting about eight decks of cards at the end of the night.

He also pioneered the development of plastic casino chips.