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Training the Front Line

The last link in the chain between your coffee and your customer is your barista­training matters.

Photo courtesy of Seattle Barista Academy.

By Karen L. Wagner

When Jared Mockli first began working as a barista, he thought he was doing a pretty good job dosing, tamping, pulling and steaming. In fact, for about a year, he believed his espresso-making technique was some pretty hot stuff. Then, he attended a Coffee Fest trade show and saw how the pros do it. That's when Mockli realized that he really didn't know what he was doing, and he needed to be better--a lot better. So, Mockli began educating himself about the proper techniques and also began practicing, practicing, practicing. Eventually, his barista skills improved.

"It took me a long time because I had no direct supervision or training," Mockli now says.

Today, Mockli is executive director, trainer and master barista at the Seattle Barista Academy, a school that offers programs designed to educate baristas and other specialty coffee aficionados about good espresso-making techniques. Along with classes and consulting, the academy also offers barista certification.

The Seattle Barista Academy, started about a year ago, is part of a growing movement by baristas and others in the coffee industry to raise the standards of baristas and turn what is largely considered just a job into a true profession, much the way it is considered a career in Italy and other places in Europe.

About a year ago, a group of baristas got together to form the Barista Guild of America, a trade guild of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, whose mission is to promote coffee quality and craftsmanship.

The SCAA is also planning on pumping up its training programs for coffee-making. According to Stacie Stringfellow, director of educational programs, the SCAA hopes to set up five regional training centers across the country, where members will help baristas and others improve their espresso-making techniques.

"That's our plan," says Stringfellow, noting the project is still in the working stages.

Hands in the chain

Training baristas to be better at their craft is a vital mission for the industry, says Sherri Johns, an internationally certified coffee judge for the SCAA, who scores barista competitions and also trains other judges.

"To say the future of specialty coffee depends on it wouldn't be too much of an overstatement," says Johns, who also runs a coffee consulting business, Whole Cup Coffee Consulting, Portland, Ore.

Johns notes that baristas are part of the chain of hands, from the farmer to the packer to the roaster, that touches the bean and can greatly affect the quality of the coffee.

"They are the last set of hands that touches a cup," says Johns. "A barista is really critical in that quality chain."

For that reason, Johns continues, baristas need to have a good handle on both the technical and artistic aspects of their work. They need to know how the espresso machine works, how to maintain it, and how even the dosing and tamping can affect the taste of the product. Likewise, a good barista may be able to say that a certain blend of espresso tastes best at a 23-second extraction. "That's when they become an artist," she says.

All this just doesn't happen in a few weeks, however, so a barista has to be dedicated. Johns says it takes at least a couple of years for baristas to become good at the craft. "To get that true finesse behind the counter, it takes practice," she says.

Mastering the basics

Because mastering the craft can take several years, training programs offer participants the fundamentals of good coffee-making techniques.

"They're not going to come out of it a rock star barista," says Mockli, who honed his own skills so well that he has been noted as one of the best baristas in Seattle in the Seattle Times.

The SBA's three-day program begins with the history of coffee, covers some aspects of roasting and offers plenty of hands-on training for making actual coffee drinks, Mockli says. The training covers everything from understanding and maintaining the espresso machine to grind adjustment, shot extraction, milk steaming and drink building. Classes are offered at beginner, intermediate and advanced levels and cost $885. The SBA has additional programs in Los Angeles and Portland, Ore.

Seattle Barista Academy executive directory Jared Mockli with SBA graduate Arthur Chow.

Baristas can also become certified through the SBA. The hour-long test includes 20 to 30 written questions; the rest involves skills testing on the machine, Mockli says. Students must be able to make a certain number of drinks in a set period of time.

"You have to be able to interact with me, as well," Mockli adds, noting the importance of customer service in addition to skills.

Senior and master levels of certification are also available. Mockli says it takes anywhere from three to five years worth of experience to achieve those levels.

The certification is free for those who take the barista training class; otherwise, the fee is $75.

While baristas are not required to be certified, Mockli says it can help with job prospects. "It adds to your credentials," he says, adding that there's a personal fulfillment aspect, as well. "It's more of having something to show for what you've done."

Baristas can also receive certificates through the American Barista & Coffee School, Portland, Ore. The school is part of Bellissimo Coffee InfoGroup, a coffee industry consulting firm based in Eugene, Ore.

The school offers an intensive five-day program that covers the business side of coffee retailing, including everything from how to put together a business plan to hiring employees and marketing, says Austin Gregory, director of the school.

Included in the five-day program are two days of strict coffee training where the approach focuses on the physics and chemistry behind making a good cup of coffee, espresso or specialty drink and dispelling some of the preconceived notions about espresso-making, Gregory explains.

For example, tamping--or pressing the ground beans very firmly into the coffee basket--is largely considered a hard and fast rule. But Gregory explains that the hard tamping that has been a given in the industry is not necessarily required. Instead, he explains, the amount of required pressure is based on the fineness of the grind. The finer the grind, the less tamping is required because the water will do what the tamping does, he says.

"If you're used to tamping, then tamp hard," says Gregory, another self-taught barista who has conducted his own research about the art of espresso-making during trips to Italy. "But it's not necessary. What I do is give (students) more information so they can have a better knowledge base."

Those interested only in the barista training can take the two-day session rather than attending for the full five days, Gregory says. Sessions are held once a month, generally during the third week and cost $2,475 (for early registrants) for five days and $1,450 for two days.

Gregory also believes it's important to focus on using different types of espresso machines during the training. He teaches using four different machines because he believes baristas should be able to be confronted with unfamiliar equipment and figure out how to use it within a short period of time.

"Within five minutes you should be able to use different pieces of equipment efficiently," he says.

Gregory says plans are in the works to offer a traveling series version of the 7-month-old coffee training school. The sessions will be held in countries, such as Jamaica, where coffee is grown so students can learn about the entire process of coffee growing.

"There's already a lot of interest in that," he says.

Evolving attitudes

Along with turning out better baristas, the goal of such training programs is to elevate the perception of what baristas do. Generally, baristas make anywhere from minimum wage to $9, $10 or $11 an hour, plus tips of $1 to $4 an hour, Mockli says. Baristas who want to make a livable wage, currently must turn to management positions, he says.

But Mockli hopes that will change and believes that training programs will help.

"Right now I see the industry evolving," he says, noting that part of the reason is that consumers' tastes are becoming more sophisticated and they're expecting better quality beverages. "The standards are going up at this point."

In addition to improving their specialty drinks, offering professionally trained baristas may also be a way for coffeehouse retailers to stand out from their competition.

"Café owners are beginning to understand what it means to have someone of the caliber of a trained barista," says Sherri Johns.

While in general, she says espresso-making is still not treated as a profession the way it is in Europe, Johns believes that attitudes are changing.

"It is happening here now, in some places," she says. "You have those pinpoints across the United States."

Current U.S. barista champion Bronwen Serna says is she able to make a decent living working as a barista for Hines Public Market Coffee in Seattle. A barista for four years, Serna says she is learning her craft partially on her own and partially from traveling the world and learning from others.

"It's more like an apprenticeship," she says.

Serna hopes some day to become a roaster and her ultimate goal is to own her own coffeehouse, so she will essentially always be a barista. But for those whose aspirations don't extend beyond the espresso machine, Serna says change is on the horizon and one day it will be commonplace for baristas to be considered trained professionals.

"It's definitely going to take a while, but I see it getting there," she says.

Austin Gregory agrees. The image of the barista in this country, he believes, has a long way to go before it reaches the professional level that exists in such places as Italy. For one thing, he explains, the average barista in Italy is 42 and male. Here, the average barista is 18 and female, he says.

In addition, Italy has about 200,000 coffeehouses, he says, far more than in the United States. But he says that specialty coffee is not a just a fad and this country has nowhere near reached its saturation point for coffeehouses. As more are added, he continues, the status of baristas can only be elevated, as café owners realize their importance and begin offering higher wages and benefits.

The problem is that in the United States, specialty coffee is still in its infancy, unlike Italy, he says. There, the industry is regulated by a government agency that goes from café to café to certify that espresso machines are doing what they're supposed to be doing and customers are getting what they've paid for--a quality cup of coffee made by a professional barista.

"That's where we will probably be in 70 years," Gregory quips, adding that it's going to take a while for things to change, but he's optimistic they will. "Coffee's not going anywhere."

Barista Guild of America

Last summer, six baristas got together in San Francisco and began discussing how they could form a community of baristas dedicated to quality coffee and fostering the notion of espresso-making as a craft.

The group decided to form a guild and, under the auspices of the Specialty Coffee Association of America, began working on a mission statement. The guild became official a few months later during a meeting at the Nascore (North American Specialty Coffee & Beverage Retailer's Expo) convention when an ad hoc board was voted in, explains Dismas Smith, one of the founding members of what is now known as the Barista Guild of America.

Smith says one of the objectives of the guild is to hold regular barista jams, where baristas can get together to talk about their work, discuss new ideas, hold classes about coffee and learn from one another.

Rather than focusing on competition, the sessions are intended to promote education.

"A lot of baristas aren't interested in competition at all, but they want to learn more," points out Smith, an award-winning barista who is currently consulting and plans on opening his own coffeehouse.

Eventually, Smith says, the guild hopes to establish 10 BGA-sanctioned regional jams across the United States that will include at least one board member. This year the goal is to hold three jams, probably on the East and West coasts and one in the Midwest, Smith says.

As for the long-term, Smith says the group wants to dispel certain misconceptions about baristas and their craft. One misconception is that making espressos and other specialty coffee drinks requires little skill.

"A lot of people just view it as a college-age job," says Smith. The goal of the guild, he explains, is to help create an atmosphere that will help café owners understand the barista's role in the success of a coffeehouse and turn the position into a full-fledged profession rather than a part-time job.

"In Italy there's people who have been doing it for 20, 30 years," says Smith, noting that some baristas in Seattle have been at their craft for as long as 10 or 15 years. Smith says that's the kind of longevity the guild hopes to foster so the work of a barista can become a more respected position.

For membership information, visit the SCAA Web site, www.scaa.org, and click on the link called "Related Organizations." Annual dues for BGA membership are $45.

The BGA is in the process of setting up a Web site that will be able to be accessed through the SCAA's site. A Barista Guild bulletin board currently is up and running on the site and can be found through the "Forums" link.

ABC's

• American Barista & Coffee School
• Portland, Ore.
• (800) 655-3955
• www.coffeeschool.org

Seattle Barista Academy

• Seattle
• (800) 927-3286 x. 210
• www.seattlebaristaacademy.com

Specialty Coffee Association of America

• (562) 624-4100
• www.scaa.org

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Originally published - October 2004
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