In the race to build robotic coffee baristas, the U.S. vies with China
In the race to perfect robot coffee baristas, I am concerned that the Chinese may be building up a grande — or even venti — lead over the U.S.
On a recent Wednesday afternoon, I drove to Hudson, N.H., a suburb of Nashua, to check out the first permanent coffee kiosk built by a North Billerica startup, P!ng. The company is currently trying to raise $500,000 on the crowdfunding website Wefunder, and is about three-quarters of the way there.
Here's the P!ng vision: You place an order on the company's mobile app, and as your car approaches the roadside kiosk, one of two robots working inside prepares your beverage. As you enter the drive-through, a digital sign tells you which of two windows will have your order, and when you pull up, the window opens to reveal your drink. No workers are required — except for replenishing supplies inside — and, in theory, it could operate 24/7.
And because the employees are robots, you wouldn't feel the obligation to throw a $1 tip to them every time you needed a caffeine hit. The company hopes to build these kiosks and sell them to franchisees around the country.
Here's the P!ng reality: I ordered a caramel iced latte using the company's mobile app, during P!ng's two-hour daily testing period, which runs from 1-3 p.m. on weekdays. Hot drinks are not on the menu yet.
I pulled off Route 111 to find the company's chief technology officer, Rory MacKean, holding an iPad. Rather than using my phone's location to trigger the system to start making the drink, MacKean did it manually. A large digital screen built into the front of the kiosk that read "Please wait here for instructions" didn't give me instructions or indicate that my order was being prepared. MacKean told me to drive up to the second window.
When a cylindrical door opened, a plastic cup full of something was visible, but it didn't look like an iced latte. It was entirely white, with ice — even though a label affixed to the side said it contained coffee extract, caramel syrup, oat milk and ice.
MacKean helped me use the app to place a second order for the same drink, and he poked his head inside the kiosk to see what was going on.
Inside were two engineers from Enyuare, a Lexington-based design and engineering firm helping P!ng build and refine its system. MacKean said they were keeping an eye on the robots and also doing some tasks by hand that haven't yet been automated, like affixing labels and putting lids on cups.
The second time around, it was clear that there was coffee in my iced latte, but it was probably the lightest latte I've ever had — Dunkin' included — and I couldn't taste the caramel flavor. A third drink I tried, a soda called a Bantha Milk, made with cream, lime syrup, pomegranate syrup and blue raspberry syrup, was much better.
During the testing period, all of P!ng's drinks are free, so at least the price was right.
When I spoke to the company's co-founders, Jane Lo and Rob Whitten, they told me that the kiosk is operating in shake-down mode.
"It's still semi-autonomous at the moment, but on a much stronger path towards full autonomy," Whitten said.
Neither wanted to put a target date on when the kiosk will be able to operate without human involvement, but they said they expect hot drinks to be on the menu later this year.
P!ng was founded in 2023 and began running open-to-the-public tests in its first prototype kiosk, built on a trailer, in the fall of 2024 in Lowell. The New Hampshire kiosk started its customer testing in February.
Lo said the robots don't grind beans and brew fresh coffee in the kiosk. Instead, they add water to frozen coffee "pucks" supplied by Cometeer, a Gloucester company. (I've made Cometeer's coffee at home, and while they source high-quality beans from roasters like George Howell Coffee and Intelligentsia, it can be a challenge to get the ideal water-to-coffee ratio, whether you're making it hot or iced.)
"It might be a regional New Englander thing, but a lot of customers told us they preferred the coffee to be mild rather than bold," Lo said. But she added that in the future, customers will be able to specify whether they want their coffee mild or bold.
Whitten later emailed to explain that the kiosk was experiencing an "inventory system issue that resulted in an under-dispensed drink" when I visited.
She said the kiosks may also dispense snacks or convenience store items in the future.
But as P!ng perfects its technology and tries to sell franchisees on the concept, it will find itself competing with a Wisconsin startup, Octane Coffee Co. that had a head start. Octane was founded in 2018 and already operates a location that is open 12 hours a day, seven days a week. Octane CEO Adrian Deasy tells me that while they sometimes have a human ambassador greeting customers, the drink production is totally automated. The company plans to open up a second location in Milwaukee this summer, Deasy said.
Octane says it has raised more than $4 million and has received more than 2,000 inquiries from prospective franchisees. P!ng has collected about $1 million in capital, including some funding from Helen Greiner, one of the co-founders of iRobot Corp., the maker of the Roomba vacuum cleaner.
And there are other companies focusing on indoor coffee stations manned by robots, rather than outdoor drive-throughs. Café X Technologies, founded by Babson College dropout Henry Hu, has been at it the longest. Since 2017, Hu has installed robot-run kiosks in California, Germany and Dubai, among other places, but none in Massachusetts.
I patronized the first Cafe X machine in a San Francisco mall; it was basically a McDonald's-type automatic espresso machine with a robot arm to hand you the coffee. It didn't knock my socks off.
However, another company, Robo Café, has been planting Chinese-made kiosks around the Boston area. The kiosk is made by Shanghai Hi-Dolphin Robot Technology Co. but its synthetic voice speaks in what sounds like an Australian accent when it says, "Hello! What would you like to drink today?" You can find these kiosks at Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Children's Hospital, Tufts Medical Center, and the South Shore Plaza mall.
On Saturday, I went to seek out the Robo Café at MGH. You order using a tablet computer, and the menu is broader than P!ng's: it includes chai tea, matcha drinks, espresso drinks and mochas, and you can order everything hot or iced. Some of the hot drinks can have latte art — l ike the Mona Lisa — printed on the surface of the milk foam .
But how did it taste?
The Chinese-made machine uses beans roasted in Acton from George Howell Coffee and actually pulls a fresh shot for your drink. I tried a hot latte and an iced latte. Both tasted like a $6 beverage, with assertive coffee and dark chocolate flavors. It seemed like the machine was not only using good ingredients but also was expertly tuned.
Coffee vending machines — invented here in America — have been around since 1946 . And if you're old enough, you probably remember how bad that coffee tasted. But in the decades since those vending machines appeared, many people's taste buds for coffee have become more sophisticated. So if we're going to bring robots into the equation, they probably should aim high on quality.
Stories by Scott Kirsner
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