A-HED

11 Scoops or 12? Coffee Wars Come to the Office

Companies thought fancy coffee bars and endless refills would make employees happy. Instead, it brought grumbling and bickering. ‘They argued for 20 minutes.’

By Julie Jargon
https://twitter.com/juliejargon
Julie.Jargon@wsj.com
Oct. 9, 2018 11:00 a.m. ET

When HubSpot Inc. brought high-end coffee to its Cambridge, Mass., campus, it expected employees to be thrilled. Facilities head Ken Papa created a “coffee garden” with an array of self-service brewers, grinders and two cold-brew taps—all free of charge to employees. The software company already had a gym, mobile bike repair shop and visiting yoga and barre instructors.

But the cold brew taps proved so popular that workers griped they often ran dry. An unknown employee created a website, does2canhavecoldbrew.com, to monitor the situation. Fans of high-end tea complained coffee drinkers were getting preferential treatment; the tea offering consisted only of tea bags and hot water.



Old brew

Lots of offices have fancy coffee these days. That just means lots of office workers are grumbling about it. What some managers thought would help keep workers at their desks instead of going out for coffee, has actually led to employees wasting time bickering or waging campaigns for their preferred brews.

At HubSpot, the facilities team got better at predicting cold-brew demand. To pacify tea-drinkers, HubSpot bought teaBOTs, machines with touch-screen pads that allow people to customize their own blend of loose-leaf tea, and installed ice-tea taps. “Everyone is included in the coffee garden, not just coffee drinkers,” said Rachel Yen, HubSpot’s customer events and experience coordinator. She favors iced skim milk lattes.
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Write to Julie Jargon at julie.jargon@wsj.com