This has been a long time coming, but I didn’t really want to publicize it until I was altogether sure that it was going to happen. It’s happening, tomorrow, at 7 am at 1644 N Damen. I’m the barista trainer there, and the owners have basically empowered me to do whatever I want to do with the coffee and with the training. So the coffee is going to be as good as I want it to be. And I want really, really good coffee.
Yesterday and today, I had a little training minicamp, where we did the obvious taste everything on the menu, but I also led everyone through a tasting of citrus fruit (navel oranges, tangerines, clementines, mineolas, blood oranges, kumquats, and yuzu juice). With the basic navel orange, I went ahead and cut out some zest and then some pith along with. The exercise was to get everyone to take the taste less for granted, and to start focusing on descriptions. Plus citrus occurs in coffee over and over again, just like chocolate, which we also tasted through. I went through 4 kinds of Scharffen Berger, a 41, 62, 70, & 82 cacao content in order. Chocolate and citrus are nice things to say about how a coffee tastes, but I want the staff to be able to talk more specifically about it. Just when people thought I was being really overly nice to them for the tasting exercises, I made them all put a spoonful of cocoa powder in their mouths. Ew.
But it was worth it, because my trainees are becoming super adventurous about saying what they taste in the coffees, and they’re starting to trust their palettes. One thing that Rick Bayless once said which really stuck with me was that as a chef (or really even as a line cook) the basic function of your job is tasting things over and over again. The way you make sure your coffee (or even your hot potato/cold potato) tastes good is by tasting it. Gasp.
But that’s just it. I need the staff to be confident in their palates because I can’t be there every moment the shop is open. It’s really not hard, it’s just a matter of caring and paying attention. Really!
[reprinted from my personal blog]