Why you should never make coffee in your hotel room
Before you pour yourself a cup of coffee from the hotel room coffee maker, you might want to read this.
A study by the University of Valencia tested nine different Nespresso machines in hotel rooms that had been in use for at least one year.
The report found: “All the machines revealed a significant bacterial diversity, with the total number of identified genera ranging from 35 to 67,” meaning a “moderately to highly abundant” quantity.
South Nassau Communities Hospital’s Department of Medicine chairman Aaron Glatt said all food-related appliances carried health risks.
“Any food-related item could potentially be a source of contamination, but as the coffee is brewed or boiled, this is less likely to be a common source of infection transmission. In any event, these items should be regularly cleaned as per the manufacturer’s recommendations,” Dr Glatt said.
But where the in-room coffee makers are failing is the “regular cleaning part”.
In order to prevent mould and bacteria from growing inside of coffee makers, they need to be cleaned every few months with vinegar.
Hot water alone won’t kill the mould, so that quick rinse in the sink isn’t cleaning the coffee maker as much as you think it is.
Think the coffee pot in the hotel lobby might be a better choice? Dr Charles Gerba, professor of microbiology and environmental sciences at the University of Arizona, has studied communal coffee machines in office break rooms.
“In studying the spread of a tracer virus, we found that the coffee pot handle in the break room was one of the first contaminated articles with the virus,” he says.
“So, my suggestion is to always get your coffee first in the morning.”