These days. I make a b-line for Prufrock, SensoryLondon and Tapped and Packed and tend to use Hasbean and Squaremile beans in my Syphon, Woodneck and Gaggia – which I felt shamed mentioning. I mean Gaggia? This is hardly top end…

My loving lady though. She used to love a coffee with me. We’d go to Coffee Republic sit and chat over a Latte for the lady, Cappuccino for the gentleman. Since I have “upped my game” however, things have changed.

I’ve taken her to al the best London coffee shops and attempted to dazzle her with some of the best beans in the world. To the same response. “your coffee is discusting, it all tastes like purfume”. very frustrating!

Then I came to the awful conclusion. Some people like “bad” coffee. For some the roast to far IS the coffee. I sometimes feel a little arrogant telling her how bad the coffee she loves is. That usually washes away though when she tells me that she asked the local barista “can you put a little less coffee in that thing? (portafilter)…..

that leads to the roaster/retailer. this is much more complicated because it involves the barista, the retail manager/owner and the wholesale roaster. lets start with the barista. Imagine you are a barista at a “cool” place where you think you are producing an amazing product, but in reality it is not so good (this probably isn’t a stretch for most of us since we all probably started there). When a customer comes to you and informs you that it sucks that is quite a blow to ones ego. I feel that unless there is some kind of relationship established that informing a barista that the espresso is bad may not work. The approach that i like to take is to ask the Barista their name and find out their level of interest in learning about coffee. If they have an interest i then share with them some of my experience as a barista and roaster then ask them if they would be interested in way to learn more about their craft. If they say yes, great i can either invite them to come to our warehouse/retail location for a pubic cupping or share with them some preparation tips on the spot. This usually works well and i usually get a free espresso that is usually better. In a lot of cases the barista doesn’t care and that is a lost cause. As for the manager a similar approach works well and you also get an opportunity to give them some insight into differing roaster/wholesalers, which might lead to a new account. If you do not represent a roaster/wholesaler then you may be limited to offering preparation tips and hoping that your next visit will be better (even if you never return you will have improved the experience of the all the future customers). Finally, the roaster/ retailer very well might lose some customers which may lead them to create or improve their training program. What I have found works best to improve roaster/wholesale training in the St. Louis area is the Barista Competition. The competition lays out for the spectators (the customer) which roaster has a greater understanding of the complete process and what goes into making great espresso and providing good service. This motivates barista to learn more roasters to step up and consumers to gain an experience of great coffee. I don’t think Barista Competition is the answer, i think the answer is in establishing relationships where you can provide an exceptional coffee experience.

Costa are a great example of a company whose training seems to result in a staff who believe that knowing the process is the same as understanding the process. (It is fairly common too, but as we are hating on Costa…..)

If everyone who had an experience like this pretty much boycotted the chain responsible then I think we would see change pretty quickly.