This article is sponsored by our partner, Bluewater Group.
For most cafes, the exact quality of their brewing water is a mystery. That can be a problem: Coffee is on average 98% water, which means factors from pH to mineral content can have a profound effect on how the final cup tastes—and how well cafes’ expensive equipment functions.
Bluewater Group, a Swedish water technology company, wants to address this knowledge gap. Its proprietary system, the Café Station 1, gives coffee shops the ability to dial in water quality just like they would their espresso grind settings.
The system first purifies water, then re-mineralizes it with liquid minerals to a precise, consistent TDS (total dissolved solids). The product won the Best New Product Award at last year’s World of Coffee Dubai, and it’s now available in the United States through Bluewater USA Inc.
Fresh Cup spoke with Niklas Ivarsson, who is leading Bluewater’s U.S. expansion through Bluewater USA Inc., to better understand why precision water control matters so much for coffee.
What is the Café Station 1 origin story?
Café Station 1 really started from Bluewater’s bigger mission of delivering clean, safe water, and structuring it in a way that supports human health. Once you begin with truly purified water, you’re left with a blank canvas, and that opens the door to something the coffee world has struggled with for a long time: consistent, controllable extraction.
For cafes and roasters, water is the one ingredient that touches every cup, yet operators have historically had very little control over it. And when the water is inconsistent, everything downstream gets harder. Flavor moves around, equipment suffers, and service issues pile up. In coffee specifically, a huge amount of service calls, emergency downtime, and deferred maintenance can be traced back to water problems and scale.
Café Station 1 solves this by pairing deep purification with precise re-mineralization, allowing operators can run stable water day after day in a controlled environment. The practical result is better, more repeatable flavor extraction, but also something operators care about just as much: dramatically less limescale in equipment. That means fewer time bandits like descaling, easier scheduling of preventative maintenance, less downtime, and more predictable daily revenue.
Café Station 1 uses liquid minerals instead of traditional mineral cartridges to remineralize water. Why?
We chose liquid minerals because it gives cafes something cartridges can’t: precision and consistency. Traditional mineral cartridges have a fixed recipe that changes as the cartridge depletes, and performance can drift depending on water conditions and throughput.
With LiquidRock [Bluewater’s patented liquid mineral solution], the minerals are instead delivered as a controlled liquid concentrate, so dosing is consistent and repeatable. That means the water profile can stay stable—same minerals and same target TDS, day after day, not just when a cartridge is new.
LiquidRock also allows more flexibility. Operators can adjust mineralization intentionally, instead of being locked into one cartridge outcome. Because we avoid the kinds of minerals that drive limescale, this approach supports equipment health. Less scale buildup, less descaling, and fewer water-related service interruptions.
[When we asked for clarification on the chemistry of LiquidRock and how it avoids the limescale problem, Ivarsson had a detailed answer—see the final question below.]
How can water mineralization be dialed in to achieve specific flavor outcomes in coffee?
Water mineralization influences extraction. Minerals in the water interact with coffee compounds and shape what ends up in the cup. That’s why water can change how a coffee presents—think clarity and brightness versus more sweetness and body.
Operationally, it’s important to be clear: for most cafes, espresso and batch brew are run through one water line, and therefore, on one consistent setting. You’re not changing the water profile every hour. The goal is a stable, repeatable profile that keeps flavor consistent and protects equipment.
Where dialing in the mineral recipe becomes powerful is when a cafe has a dedicated pour-over bar. In that setting, you can intentionally adjust mineralization to build a coffee and water recipe that supports the roaster’s intent for a specific coffee, helping highlight the flavors they want customers to taste. It turns water into a deliberate tool for product development, not a variable you’re stuck with.
Bluewater has an app that operators can use to adjust the mineral profile. What tweaks can people make to reach an optimal water profile?
In the app, you can essentially adjust the water recipe, mainly the calcium and magnesium mineral recipe, and the dosing needed to hit your TDS target.
For a dedicated pour-over bar, you can also switch recipes for the specific coffee you’re brewing. You can choose the profile you’ve found best complements that particular coffee.
What kind of coffee company needs this level of precise control?
Café Station 1 is built for operators who care about three things: serving safe water, optimizing flavor, and keeping equipment healthy. Those concerns are relevant for almost any cafe or roaster, because water touches every drink and every piece of brewing equipment.
Where it becomes even more valuable is in higher-volume cafes, multi-location groups, and quality-driven programs where consistency matters every day (or where water issues have caused downtime, service calls, or constant descaling). And it’s of course an ace in the specialty segment, where roasters are constantly in pursuit of new, elevated flavor heights. For a dedicated pour-over bar, the ability to choose different water recipes for specific coffees becomes a real creative advantage.
What does implementing the Café Station 1 look like for an existing cafe?
Implementation is straightforward. We’re essentially removing the unknowns from your water. A local dealer, service partner, or roaster will start with a water check to make sure your inbound water is in line with our SuperiorOsmosis guidelines [Bluewater Group’s standard for highly purified water], and then advise on any pre-filters needed for your specific site.
From there, it’s a retrofit. We connect Purifier + Café Station kit to the inbound water line, and from there route treated water to the equipment you want to protect and standardize (most commonly espresso machines, batch brewers, and tea brewers). For most cafes, that standard Café Station 1 setting becomes the daily workhorse behind the bar.
For pour-over, many cafes simply run on that same standard setting and it performs beautifully. If a cafe is truly in pursuit of taste excellence, we can also add a dedicated control box for the pour-over bar, so the team can use the app to make instant recipe changes and switch water profiles smoothly.
Can you explain how LiquidRock significantly reduces limescale buildup in machines?
Boiler limescale is primarily calcium carbonate (CaCO₃), which forms when calcium hardness and bicarbonate (carbonate alkalinity) are present and the water is heated. SuperiorOsmosis removes the dissolved minerals and alkalinity that create CaCO₃ scale, so the boiler no longer has the chemistry needed to precipitate traditional limescale under heat.
Our remineralization blend, LiquidRock, does not include bicarbonates, so it restores target minerals for taste and extraction without reintroducing the carbonate alkalinity that drives calcium-carbonate scaling.
In the end, the system is designed to dramatically reduce calcium-carbonate limescale formation in heated equipment while still delivering brew-appropriate mineral content.
Sponsored by Bluewater USA
Bluewater Group is a Swedish water purification and mineralization company bringing precision water control to specialty coffee through the Café Station 1 system, now available in the United States.
