{"id":22671,"date":"2015-03-16T21:46:55","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T01:46:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/?p=22671"},"modified":"2016-08-16T14:38:25","modified_gmt":"2016-08-16T18:38:25","slug":"starbucks-barista-coffee-tasting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nataliemaclean.com\/blog\/starbucks-barista-coffee-tasting\/","title":{"rendered":"Starbucks Barista is No Joe Job: The Real Story"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Starbucks<\/a>When I open the door to Starbucks on O\u2019Connor Street, long shafts of September sunlight stream in, ricocheting off the chrome espresso machine and the cellophane-wrapped bags of coffee.<\/p>\n

The smoky, dark chocolate aroma of brewing coffee snakes down my central nervous system. I feel faint with the need for caffeine. On most Sunday mornings, I\u2019m less bright-eyed squirrel, more startled raccoon.<\/p>\n

A young auburn-haired woman named Bethany Wade bounds to the door and greets me with the perky inflection of the highly caffeinated. \u201cWelcome!\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re so glad you can join our group.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wade trains Ottawa recruits to become Starbucks \u201cbaristas.\u201d Coffee traditionalists take issue with the company\u2019s use of the title, the Italian word for espresso barman. In Italy, career baristas, in crisp white \"Starbucks<\/a>shirts and tuxedos, work in caf\u00e9s for years before earning the designation\u2014and are paid $40,000 to $60,000 for their skills.<\/p>\n

That hardly compares with most of their North American equivalents, though Starbucks does pay better than most and when we\u2019re done, we\u2019ll have completed twenty-four hours of training.<\/p>\n

She introduces me to five women and two men sitting on chairs in a circle, group-therapy style. They all look younger than thirty, as does Wade herself. Waiting for the last arrival (a young man with two-day stubble, clearly not a morning person either), one woman jokes that we need coffee.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve already had three cups, I\u2019ll be awake till Friday,\u201d a lanky young man says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree cups? I\u2019d have to take a nap after that,\u201d snickers a small, wiry woman.<\/p>\n

Wade begins. \u201cToday we\u2019ll learn how to taste coffee and how to make it. We\u2019ll talk about Starbucks\u2019 history and culture and what it means to provide Legendary Service,\u201d she says, raising her eyebrows.<\/p>\n

She makes four pots of coffee, each in its own French press\u2014a glass pot in which boiling water is poured over fresh grounds and then a plunger is slowly pushed to the bottom. This makes a far better coffee than household drip percolators: the water never really gets hot enough and the filters leave a papery taste.<\/p>\n

We take a cup of the first coffee for a tasting or \u201ccupping.\u201d This is sacred Starbucks tradition: at headquarters in Seattle, every meeting starts with a cupping and all baristas are expected to taste coffee three times a day. (It\u2019s a bad career move to skip coffee break.) We wrap our hands around cup and nose to better appreciate the aromas. I\u2019m just relieved to be using two hands at this time of the day.<\/p>\n

\"Coffee<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSo what do you smell?\u201d Wade asks.<\/p>\n

Everyone looks into their cups.<\/p>\n

\u201cTry using words you\u2019re comfortable with, so you can describe the coffee for customers without getting too technical,\u201d she coaxes. \u201cFor example, you might say that a coffee is mild, something that\u2019s good for the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"pic\" <\/div>

As with wine, most of coffee\u2019s nuance is in the smell. In fact, it has some 1,200 aromas. - Natalie MacLean<\/i> <\/span> Natalie MacLean<\/span> <\/i>Click to tweet <\/span> <\/span> <\/p> <\/div> <\/a> <\/div>That\u2019s because the beans are first roasted and then prepared as a drink. Professional cuppers use many wine tasting terms to describe the aromas: berries, nuts, citrus fruit, flowers, earth and smoke. Bad smells include straw, sweat and horse\u2014unless you\u2019re drinking a cup after a romp with the stable man.<\/p>\n

Wade then asks us to slurp the coffee and roll it around our mouths. \u201cDoes it linger? What flavours sit on your palate?\u201d<\/p>\n

The coffee smells like rusty drain water moistening charcoal briquettes. Out of fear that we\u2019re tasting the house blend, I conceal my distaste, but the wiry woman doesn\u2019t hold back, screwing up her nose in distaste.<\/p>\n

Wade seems oddly pleased. \u201cDon\u2019t you like it?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n

The woman says it tastes metallic to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight! This one is\u2014,\u201d Wade lowers her voice\u2014 \u201cinstant coffee from the grocery store.\u201d We all glare at the village outcast.<\/p>\n

Most instant coffee, she explains, is made from robusta coffee beans, which are cheaper to grow: they thrive at low altitudes and resist disease and frost. But they also have less flavour than the more expensive, lower-yield arabica beans, which grow best in volcanic soil at altitudes of 3,000 to 4,500 feet.<\/p>\n

\"Top<\/a><\/p>\n

Those beans mature slowly in the cool mountain air, which gives them an intense flavour and a balanced acidity, like wine grapes grown in cool climates. These are the beans that Mrs. Folger and Juan Valdez were always going on about. They\u2019re the only kind that Starbucks uses.<\/p>\n

We try the next coffee, and Wade asks what we pick up. I\u2019m paranoid about declaring my love for another No Name brand, though, so I keep quiet. But a woman in a Gap tracksuit says, \u201cI like this one\u2014it\u2019s lively.\u201d<\/p>\n

What makes coffee lively is acidity\u2014not so much a sour or bitter taste as a tangy, bright flavour tasted along the sides of the tongue. In the trade it\u2019s called snap. Kenyan and Latin American coffees, for example, usually have good snap.<\/p>\n

Along with aroma and acidity, the third important aspect of coffee is body: how rich and weighty it feels on the palate. Light-bodied coffees from regions such as Sumatra have a texture like water, medium-bodied ones, such as Guatemalan, are like milk and full-bodied coffees from Costa Rica are more like cream. But it\u2019s rare to find a single coffee that\u2019s strong in all three areas, so they\u2019re often blended for a better overall impression.<\/p>\n