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Hi all,
Ive been working at a largish, busy café for the last 3 months and have gained the role of "resident coffee snob" by virtue of always hassling the boss about coffee.
Unfortunately, the café has some problems with coffee standards/consistency.
Fortunately, I have an opportunity to help with this in the coming months, as a likely change in coffee beans means new equipment, hopefully to be finely tuned to make great espresso!
I want some advice from baristas and café-operators on how to maximise this opportunity.
I should start by describing the problems:
-- Lack of training: if new employees say they can make coffee, theyre allowed on the machine no questions asked. One girl began making her trademark meringue-cappuccinos within minutes of starting her first shift.
-- Lack of standards: there is no consensus on how much to dose and tamp, and most people just give the doser two yanks, squish it down and plug the PF in (volumetric machine breeds laziness).
-- Poor milk hygiene: most people re-heat milk, make no effort to steam only enough for the drink(s) theyre preparing, and are admonished from chucking already-steamed milk down the sink (which doesnt stop me doing it...).
-- Coffee freight: while the (soon to be replaced) beans are roasted in Melbourne and delivered fresh (as far as I can tell), the boss chooses to get large deliveries, less often, meaning that the beans - while ok - are not in their prime by the time we use them. New beans should mean fresher beans.
-- Poor coffee handling: except for the end of the day, people leave the doser auto-fill function on (Mazzer SJ, btw), meaning that the ground coffee is likely to stale before it is used.
That list makes it sound like a coffee-snobs version of hell, but its not that bad - thats a list of the worst of the worst! I enjoy working there because I enjoy changing all of the above (or whatever I can) to make better coffee. But it can be frustrating when Im the only one who cares. Im sure other can relate to that.
What Im really asking is for some advice from people in the industry which I can pass on when it comes time to switch to the new machine and grinder. I realise that our problems wont be solved just by nailing the grinder/doser/volumetrics settings, but I think it will help, and if I can show the boss why it matters, he might want to do some training sessions with the crew. Also any advice on the best way(s) of explaining/showing the boss the importance of things like grinding, dosing, tamping and extracting espresso "properly"...
Cheers
Stuart.
Ive been working at a largish, busy café for the last 3 months and have gained the role of "resident coffee snob" by virtue of always hassling the boss about coffee.
Unfortunately, the café has some problems with coffee standards/consistency.
Fortunately, I have an opportunity to help with this in the coming months, as a likely change in coffee beans means new equipment, hopefully to be finely tuned to make great espresso!
I want some advice from baristas and café-operators on how to maximise this opportunity.
I should start by describing the problems:
-- Lack of training: if new employees say they can make coffee, theyre allowed on the machine no questions asked. One girl began making her trademark meringue-cappuccinos within minutes of starting her first shift.
-- Lack of standards: there is no consensus on how much to dose and tamp, and most people just give the doser two yanks, squish it down and plug the PF in (volumetric machine breeds laziness).
-- Poor milk hygiene: most people re-heat milk, make no effort to steam only enough for the drink(s) theyre preparing, and are admonished from chucking already-steamed milk down the sink (which doesnt stop me doing it...).
-- Coffee freight: while the (soon to be replaced) beans are roasted in Melbourne and delivered fresh (as far as I can tell), the boss chooses to get large deliveries, less often, meaning that the beans - while ok - are not in their prime by the time we use them. New beans should mean fresher beans.
-- Poor coffee handling: except for the end of the day, people leave the doser auto-fill function on (Mazzer SJ, btw), meaning that the ground coffee is likely to stale before it is used.
That list makes it sound like a coffee-snobs version of hell, but its not that bad - thats a list of the worst of the worst! I enjoy working there because I enjoy changing all of the above (or whatever I can) to make better coffee. But it can be frustrating when Im the only one who cares. Im sure other can relate to that.
What Im really asking is for some advice from people in the industry which I can pass on when it comes time to switch to the new machine and grinder. I realise that our problems wont be solved just by nailing the grinder/doser/volumetrics settings, but I think it will help, and if I can show the boss why it matters, he might want to do some training sessions with the crew. Also any advice on the best way(s) of explaining/showing the boss the importance of things like grinding, dosing, tamping and extracting espresso "properly"...
Cheers
Stuart.
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