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Regulate the Coffee Industry?

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  • #31
    I utterly disagree with the basic premise that regulating / licensing would achieve anything worthwhile in the coffee industry.

    Reminds me of "Fair Trade" or "certified organic". Great ideas whose execution can be flawed to the point of irrelevance. One couple I know locally had a great great grandfather who came to Oz in the 1880's from Italy. Being a traditional farmer, he bought 200 or so acres in an area just south of Perth. Over the next ten years he cleared about 30 acres in the centre for his beloved Valencia oranges. Why the centre? So any neighbours spraying stuff on their crops would not affect his oranges. The farm has never purchased any herbicide, pesticide (or any other "cide") and was always fertilised with local blood & bone, chicken and/or sheep manure and other items from nearby farmers. The great*2 grandfather also used what is now called "companion planting" to minimise citrus diseases (e.g. olives and real Italian tomatoes to die for). It still took over 10 years starting in the mid 1980's and a bucketload of cash to get the organic certification due to a lot of chairwarming bureaucrats who were convinced that organic methods started in the US in the 1970's.

    Also, what kind of certification? In my case I did a two week intensive in 1979 "on the job" effort with Perth's top roaster / cafe at the time. It was followed by a week of slave labour to make up for his lost time. I have no certificate for that - it was my personal initiative that got the training arranged. I had already put in 4+ years (and occasional efforts over the next 4 years) as a "part time barista in fact" at the local uni (all La Cimbali gear, it paid for a lot of my studies) as a completely untrained (aka self taught) person. The fact that I had a lot of regulars who interrogated me as to my timetable each semester meant I must have been doing something right. I left the coffee industry years ago, having never worked full time in it. These days I still set up cafes for some friends, and also train the odd friend's barista "one on one". The last lady I trained took out second place in "Perth Now coffee shops" two years running, so there must be a good level of transferred competence there. She doesn't have a certificate either. Attitude is far more important than qualifications.

    Some of the worst coffees I encounter uptown (yep, can be pretty ugly) were from guys who had a "barista certificate" proudly hanging on the wall from a Perth professional coffee training school (professional in their own minds at least). Scalding the milk was only the final bungle of a complete train wreck right in front of my eyes.

    Like a few other posters, "voting with your feet" combined with the internet's role in increasing the knowledge of good coffee skills means the improvement over the last ten years is encouraging. Hopefully it will continue to improve.

    Those who talk about chains delivering quality - it does not always follow. Ever heard of Starbucks, Peabody (US) or (alas) Dome (whose early excellent Freo coffee is now a dimming memory).

    It is worth repeating one other point - who provides the standard for a good coffee? My heavily smoking friend who needs a dark roasted 22g VST triple shot before he can taste it? The other one who loves properly aged (ie not green and underdone) delicate light roasts? Those who cannot stand black coffee? Lattes? Those who dump half an ocean of sugar in every cup (one "uni regular" added NINE teaspoons in front of me every single day I worked there for four years)? The ones who think a quinine content of 80%+ is needed to qualify as a coffee? Those who can drink Indian Monsoon without noticing the mouldy jute aftertaste?

    Enjoy your cuppa, or introduce it to a sink. All else is irrelevant.

    TampIt

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    • #32
      Originally posted by Yelta View Post
      Certainly not in my opinion Smee, seems some people are struck action-less unless there is a set of rules to guide them

      Australia is rapidly becoming a nanny state, cant move without being regulated by some bylaw.
      Australia nanny state: Have we become a nation of idiots?
      "You can ride a bike without a helmet in Europe, and you are trusted not to fall off (similarly, drivers are trusted not to run into you). You can wander freely onto public transport, and you are trusted to buy a ticket. You can drink a beer in the park, or on the pavement outside a bar, and you're trusted not to act like a drunken fool.

      You can't do those things in Australia because we live in a nanny state with a lot of rules, and we live in a nanny state with a lot of rules because there are some people out there who really need to be nannied. We don't all need it. But we have to put up with it because others do."


      I'm sure the cafe industry is well covered by health regulations, as far as defining by law how a cup of coffee should be made, way over the top as far as I'm concerned

      Why not self regulate, simple, don't like the coffee? don't return, easy, poor operators don't last long, the word spreads quickly.

      "Professional accreditation would be a fantastic step IMO." I always smile at this, (professional barista) bit like a professional sandwich maker or a professional lollipop person.

      To underscore the point, here's a professional Lollipop man who has been affected by the nanny state.
      Funny Yelta, I agree with everything you said, yet out of frustration I'm left contemplating a better way.

      I guess what Chris was pointing out in post 17, is what most annoys me. It's not the slight variances in the process of 'making a coffee' that bothers me but rather those instances where the so called Barista gets it all Fundamentally wrong. It's the coffee master that serves it scolding hot, the cafe owner that cleans & services their gear once a fortnight whether it needs it or not, the cafe owner that bulk buys months of beans at a time or bulk grinds in 'quiet times' to save time & so forth that frustrates me.

      These day, I'm uber selective when it comes to purchasing when out and about & especially when travelling away from my 'hood'.

      After reading those Campos articles, I'm going to target more of their cafes when away from home.

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      • #33
        Certainly some interesting thoughts there, thanks for sharing them.

        I think lupus's idea of a group or association where cafes join, train and promote themselves couldn't hurt and might just help educate those out there that think just because they bought machine x & bean y that they're all that. It's a pity that there's not more good places than there are bad ones.

        Such is life I guess.

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