Yesterday's Barista Training & Calibration Exercise
I have not written for a long time but that doesn't mean I have stopped thinking about coffee. Rather, I have been fully immersed with coffee the past month, creating new coffee training slides, writing coffee handouts and rolling out programs.
Tonight is rather different though. What I saw during a short but intense wholesale training yesterday encouraged me to write down what I encountered. After a step by step demonstration, it was the trainee's turn to pull some shots but right on the first extraction, he got a little panicky and start muttering that he doesn't know then when to stop as he has forgotten to use/start the timer. (We were in a unique position. The operator has bought his equipment from Supplier A, attended coffee training from Supplier B and bought coffees from us.) I asked after that failed espresso attempt if he knows how to look out for signs of blonding or weight/volume of the espresso to perhaps decide when to cut the extraction. The answer was NO. He said, "I stop the extraction at 30 seconds. I cannot do without the timer."
Don't get me wrong. The core ideas of parameters of espresso extraction remains largely unchanged when I conduct training myself. Extraction time is something I hold dearly too, but not the ONLY thing I hold on to. There are also other parameters that I preached about but it was rather amusing to see a trainee being taught to only measure a good espresso by how long it takes to extract the espresso. Is it true that the espresso taste good only at 30 seconds? What happen at 29.5 seconds or 32 seconds?
Appreciation of coffee, expectations of flavours and consumerism behaviour have evolved so much over our specialty coffee years but it is sad if training providers out there are still holding on to that only rule book of 30 seconds and/or 30 mls to measure good espresso. I know we are better then that.
Oh... I will take that 35gm - 40gm double shots espresso done at 22 seconds anytime. :)
Tonight is rather different though. What I saw during a short but intense wholesale training yesterday encouraged me to write down what I encountered. After a step by step demonstration, it was the trainee's turn to pull some shots but right on the first extraction, he got a little panicky and start muttering that he doesn't know then when to stop as he has forgotten to use/start the timer. (We were in a unique position. The operator has bought his equipment from Supplier A, attended coffee training from Supplier B and bought coffees from us.) I asked after that failed espresso attempt if he knows how to look out for signs of blonding or weight/volume of the espresso to perhaps decide when to cut the extraction. The answer was NO. He said, "I stop the extraction at 30 seconds. I cannot do without the timer."
Don't get me wrong. The core ideas of parameters of espresso extraction remains largely unchanged when I conduct training myself. Extraction time is something I hold dearly too, but not the ONLY thing I hold on to. There are also other parameters that I preached about but it was rather amusing to see a trainee being taught to only measure a good espresso by how long it takes to extract the espresso. Is it true that the espresso taste good only at 30 seconds? What happen at 29.5 seconds or 32 seconds?
Appreciation of coffee, expectations of flavours and consumerism behaviour have evolved so much over our specialty coffee years but it is sad if training providers out there are still holding on to that only rule book of 30 seconds and/or 30 mls to measure good espresso. I know we are better then that.
Oh... I will take that 35gm - 40gm double shots espresso done at 22 seconds anytime. :)
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