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F O A M : N E W S HIGH-SCHOOL COFFEE BAR DEVELOPS A NEW GENERATION OF CAFÉ OWNERS THERE ARE PLENTY of places to get great coffee in Seattle, but what about an hour north of the city? If you think all the Seattle suburbs have to offer is chain-store coffee, the students at Granite Falls High School (GFHS) want you to think again. Just as the advent of digital media has compelled schoolteachers to rewrite class cur- ricula, a shifting social culture has changed the way teachers approach extracurricular activities, such as Crosby Carpenter, who is the entrepreneurship, economics, and green-tech teacher at GFHS. The idea for an entrepre- neurship class, and the creation of a school cof- fee bar, came to mind about the same time for Crosby, in 2011. He's had the coffee bug since a trip to Central America in 2003; encountering Dan and Meg Donahue of Blue Star Coffee Roasters in Twisp, Wash., on the way out to eastern Washington State for a hike that same year, had him hooked. "We talked about how rad it would be to build a class around a functioning coffee bar," remembers Crosby of his early conversa- tions with Dan and Meg, whose company won the America's Best Espresso Championship at Coffee Fest Seattle in 2012. Crosby threw the idea of creating an espresso bar in the student store out to the administration, and the next thing he knew, the project was underway. "The [school] district agreed to pay for the equipment because it aligned with industry standards and our department vision," says Crosby, recalling how Meg and Dan sold GFHS a La Marzocco Linea and a grinder at cost. Further, the Blue Star team made a trip out to Granite Falls to train the first four student vol- unteers who would work the bar. One year later, Crosby's coffee bar had generated enough excite- ment from the students for the popular teacher to create an entre- preneurship class around the shop. "That fall, my wife and I took four students to Twisp for 'coffee camp,' " says Crosby. "Meg trained the kids on the machine, and Dan taught them coffee systems. Those four students became our class trainers and coffee-bar managers." While Entrepreneurship is the official name of the class, the students refer to it as "zero hour" or "coffee bar." This capstone 18 barista magazine B o o k 1 - 4 6 . i n d d 1 8 Book 1-46.indd 18 5 / 1 5 / 1 4 1 0 : 2 8 P M 5/15/14 10:28 PM