Office Coffee Planning Guide: Cups, Airpots & Bulk Ordering

Buying coffee for an office? A little planning can help you avoid running out during meetings without overstocking the breakroom. Use this guide to estimate coffee use, choose a brewing method, and plan five-pound bag orders.

Ground coffee amounts are given in grams (g) and ounces (oz) by weight, not fluid ounces or scoop volume. For consistency, weigh the ground coffee on a kitchen scale. Liquid water and brewed coffee volumes are labeled separately.

How much coffee does an office need?

Start with the number of employees on-site, the percentage who drink coffee, and average cups per coffee drinker each workday. An eight-ounce cup is a useful standard for planning, though many mugs hold more.

Example: 20 employees on-site × 60% drinking coffee × 2 eight-ounce cups each = 24 cups per day. At 60 grams of coffee per liter of brew water, that's approximately 341 grams (12.0 oz by weight) of ground coffee per day. Over 20 workdays, that's about 15 pounds, or three five-pound bags, before waste.

Office coffee planning table

These are baseline ingredient estimates. If employees use larger mugs, or the office regularly discards leftover brewed coffee, order quantities will be higher.

These estimates assume 60% of on-site staff drink two eight-ounce cups daily, 20 workdays per month, and 60 grams per liter.

On-site employees	Estimated cups/day	Approx. 5-lb bags/month
10	12	2
20	24	3
40	48	6
60	72	9

Actual use varies with work-from-home schedules, cup size, meeting traffic, brewing loss, and individual preferences. Track real usage for a couple of weeks before committing to a recurring order.

Brewing options for a breakroom

• Commercial airpot brewer: useful for meetings and larger teams; see our airpot brewing measurements.
• Batch drip brewer: practical for smaller offices where coffee is consumed soon after brewing.
• Single-cup brewing: convenient for varied schedules, though packaging and per-cup costs can differ substantially.

What does office coffee cost per cup?

Our five-pound blends currently list at $80–$85 per bag. At a regular-strength starting ratio of 60 g per liter, that's approximately $0.50–$0.53 in ground coffee per eight-ounce serving, before shipping, tax, filters, cups, and condiments. See the full cost-per-cup comparison.

Ready to order? Salama Sunrise 5 lb · Sunset 5 lb · Midnight 5 lb. Select whole bean or ground on the product page.

Keep ordering simple

Choose a blend, use the same brewing recipe, and keep a small usage log. Store coffee sealed in a cool, dry place; see our coffee storage guide. Visit Coffee for Offices & Businesses for more about ordering Love Beyond Borders Coffee.