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
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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