Owned and operated by Daryn & Joanna Pearson, Java Jons was launched to serve Tauranga and the Bay of Plenty in 2012.
How did you get your start in servicing espresso machines?As an electrician, I concentrated my career in complex industrial Automation and control diagnostics. We spent time in Adelaide, and I enjoyed a lot of coffee. When we moved back from Adelaide in 2006 our first purchase was a Breville Coffee Machine (yes Breville….) and went on a local barista course (wouldn’t call it that now). There weren’t a lot of opportunities, and I landed a job with a firm that was servicing steam and hot water boilers. The business started to struggle, and I decided to start looking for other opportunities. We looked at purchasing an electrical business, but then that wasn’t my thing. I saw a local shop selling their servicing and repair business. What’s your all-time favourite espresso machine to service and make coffee?In our business, we deal with a lot of different brands. My apologies if any of our customers/suppliers feel their machine(s) are better to use. I think the Wega Nova brand would be the most straightforward machine to carry out our servicing on. The access to all components is relatively straightforward from a standard service. Also, there are not too many restrictors to deal with blockages, and they are easy to get to. There are no plastic panels (always a pain when servicing due to high temperatures involved, they become brittle). What’s the most common form of machine misuse that you see baristas do?That’s hard as I am not a Barista, I don’t understand the reasoning why it would need to be done, but my pet hate is watching a barista knocking the side of their handle with the tamper. However, this is great for our business because over time both the handle and tamper become damaged and require replacing. Finally, any “what not to do” stories you’d like to share?I have made a few, but the most notable would be working on a La Marzocco within my first year. The handover of the business was very short and not a lot of information about machine repairs given (probably another ‘how not to buy a business’). I had an issue with the sight glass leaking and had turned the machine off and drained the pressure from it. I removed the drain plug below the sight glass, but due to the stress of getting the job done quickly, I wasn't able to check if the pressure had correctly drained from the boiler. The result, the boiler water scalded my stomach. |