Bluewater Rolls Out Coffee Rock For Cafes

A sample vial of Bluewater Coffee Rock. All photos provided by Bluewater.

Stockholm, Sweden-based Bluewater this month launched Coffee Rock, a mineral formula for purified water designed to improve flavor consistency in brewed coffee while protecting cafe equipment.

Coffee Rock is designed for automated dosing within the company’s Café Station 1 purification and mineralization system for specialty coffee shops.

Coffee Rock, which made its global debut at World of Coffee Bangkok last month, was developed over the two years since the launch of Café Station 1. Bluewater Chief Scientist Dr. Ahmed Fawzi led the work based on feedback and observations of how cafes were setting Liquid Rock levels in the Bluewater app.

Liquid Rock is based on a 2:1 calcium-to-magnesium ratio and is dosed through the Café Station at adjustable rates starting at 1.5 milliliters per liter of water. Coffee Rock flips that formula to a 6:1 magnesium-to-calcium ratio.

“When we started focusing on the magnesium-dominant dosing, the words I kept hearing were ‘way more juicy,’ ‘a lot more floral notes,’ ‘clarity and body,’ ‘a lot more aftertaste on the palate,'” Bluewater Product Marketing Manager Maximillian Lundin told Daily Coffee News. “So we kept going down that route.”

Lundin said the direction was also driven by certain Café Station operators who, depending on their preferred coffees, were raising Liquid Rock dosing to 3 milliliters per liter to reach higher magnesium levels while also wanting to use less product overall. “This was one of the goals when we started to develop the next generation of minerals for coffee,” Lundin said.

Coffee Rock is for sale now at the same price as Liquid Rock, potentially reducing costs because customers can use it at lower dosing levels. The new formula is also chloride-free and designed to avoid scaling and corrosion inside coffee equipment.

For home brewers, and as a potential extra revenue stream for cafes, Bluewater also launched a program called Coffee Water, giving cafes packaging and equipment for selling the water crafted by their Café Station systems.

“We have bespoke packaging that the coffee shop fills up with our system and sells to their over-the-counter bean customers. This will greatly level up the at-home experience,” Lundin said. “Our coffee shop customers become an oasis for home brewers to buy their brewing water.”

Available now in some overseas markets, Coffee Rock is currently awaiting final regulatory approvals before wider U.S. sales, according to the company. Meanwhile, Bluewater is working on enabling bespoke mineral-water recipe creation within its existing systems.

“We are early in our journey and we have already come quite far with giving the control of water to our coffee brewers,” Lundin said. “Forward-leaning brewers are also asking for the next level, which would be on-demand recipe creation. This is also a key feature that our system can do and will be available in the future.”

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