Barista Magazine

OCT-NOV 2013

Barista Magazine is your home for the worldwide community of coffee and the people who make it.

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Why It's Essential By Erin Meister Illustration by Jack Pollock ONE OF THE WORST THINGS any café owner can overhear a customer say to a barista is, "I'm so glad you're working today. You're the only one who makes my coffee the way I like it." It might seem counterintuitive: It's a compliment rather than a complaint, after all, and surely made that barista feel like a million bucks just dropped into the tip jar. What the customer's acclaim really does, however, is signify inconsistency on the line: If there's only one barista who makes this particular customer happy, then what are all her colleagues doing? What if every customer peeked in to make sure a favorite face was behind the espresso machine, and walked away when that wasn't the case? To the running of a successful coffee business—or any successful business—consistency is key: A fundamental part of what makes Starbucks appealing to millions of customers is that everyone from Albany or Albuquerque who's handed a green-and-white cup knows exactly what to expect from its contents. Of course, Starbucks achieves its level of consistency in part thanks to superautomatic brewing equipment in its shops, which eliminates much of the chance for barista error. In cafés with less automatism, however, the luxury of mechanical repetition doesn't exist, for better or worse: A dedicated, passionate, coffee-focused staff can turn out better product with technical expertise and tasting skills, but more hands manipulating the moving parts behind the bar makes for more potential for variation. Sweetleaf Coffee in New York is one shop where quality-obsessed owner Rich Nieto has made "Consistency, consistency, consistency," his baristas' mantra. A barista himself, Rich believes that the coffee professionals he hires need to have guidance, tools, and deep understanding of their craft as well as a love of the drinks and the café. "Coffee is art and science," he says. "The art is figuring out what's good, and the science is documenting it." www.baristamagazine.com 73

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