Everybody thinks their neighborhood barista is the best. The difference is that New York-based espresso doyenne Amber Sather really is one of the best, as her Barista Championship titles attest (Sather's taken home first place in two Northeast regional barista competitions and third in the national event, among others).
Though many folks don't know they exist, barista championships are no joke to coffee professionals: You must prepare four espressos, cappuccinos and signature drinks of your own design to a panel of judges under extreme pressure.
The sassy Montana native moved to New York City a year ago, leaving a barista-trainer position with Intelligentsia Coffee and Tea in Chicago for a spot on the team at Brooklyn favorite Café Grumpy, where she trains baristas and passes cup after caffeinated cup to sleepy locals.
After the jump, Sather chats with the CoffeeMeister about barista competitions, her idea of the perfect café and more.
Do you go to coffee shops with any regularity? Are you there every day, or do you make it a weekend thing? Whenever you go, have you ever wondered about the people who make your coffee?
As we should all remember they are people too (not just automatons, created to serve our caffeine whims), and they have just as many pet peeves about you as you have about them. The RedEye blog interviewed baristas extensively and put together a list of everything (well, ok, 10 things) that they really want you to know. Next time you order your favorite beverage from your favorite coffee shop, keep in mind these tips while you're leaving yours.
After reading this story at our sister site That's Fit, I may look at my local Starbuck's barista a little differently the next time I stop in for a triple venti non-fat peppermint white chocolate mocha.
Apparently a Starbuck's employee and one of her long-time regular customers had developed a friendship of sorts. If you've ever worked in the food and beverage industry, you'll know this happens often - serving the same people day in and day out, you tend to find out a lot about their lives. As much as they talked over the course of three years though, the customer, Annamarie Ausnes, hadn't revealed that she was suffering from polycystic kidney failure until it got to the point where her kidneys were only functioning at 15 percent and she would be needing a transplant.
Annamarie's husband and son weren't matches, and she was already on a very long waiting list for a donor when she happened to mention it to Sandie Anderson, her barista. Sandie immediately volunteered to be tested, and was found to be a perfect match.
Earlier this week, surgeons removed one of Sandie's kidneys and successfully transplanted it into Annamarie. Both ladies are doing well and are expected to make a full recovery. Now that is going above and beyond in the way of customer service.
Even if you're not a real barista, you can pretend at home with Barista: The Game. Discovery Bay Games calls it "a strategic game of fresh-brewed fun," and it may be for the amateurs out there. But let's admit it: for hardcore baristas, we all know it's so much more than that. Like a bartender playing a drinking game, or a chef playing Wii Cooking Mama, it's a chance to show off your skills and prove yourself once and for all amongst your comrades.
For $14.95, you can roll the dice and flip the cards to "make" drink orders - but beware of fellow players spilling your drink or messing up your order! And don't get your hopes up when you win Barista of the Month, because with another card draw, your store can just as easily be sued for serving its coffee too hot.
Essentially, Barista is a card game, so you'll have to test your trivia and actual knowledge elsewhere (for a full list of rules, click here). But it's a cute idea, and a fun way to pass the time, for baristas and wannabes alike.
This weekend, if you're in the D.C. area, you should check out the Millrock Free Pour Latte Art Championship. It's held three times a year and features the best latte artists in the country battling it out for a top prize of $5,000.
The practice of latte art has been going on for years, and is an opportunity for local, independent cafes to distinguish themselves from chains. The precision and careful technique required for each masterpiece is appealing to many customers used to the "get in, get out" mentality and rushed service of larger coffee chains. Coffee art is like mint on your pillow in a hotel or a soft blanket on an airplane, delivered without being asked - nowadays, it's unexpected but greatly appreciated, and denotes an attention to detail that is often missing from our day-to-day life.
Contestants compete in "free pouring," a technique in which a slight maneuver of the wrist can produce museum-worthy rosettas, tulips, and hearts on the surface of the drinks. If done properly, the dark espresso brings out the glossy designs in the crema, producing a stunning effect that is almost too pretty to drink. However, in cafes, the deconstruction of the drink by the act of sipping is part of the fun.
The baristas have five minutes to make up to three lattes using espresso and steamed milk, and are rated on beauty, balance, color infusion, definition, and creativity.
Check out this cool Washington Post video of two guys from an Annapolis, Maryland cafe who demonstrate this unique talent.
I want a coffee shop in my hometown that does this. Owner and latte artist Aaron Duckworth creates intricate designs on the top of lattes at his coffee shop, Espresso dell'Anatra in Kansas City, MO.
Now understandably, with line-ups out the door at various times of the day, it would be virtually impossible for places like Starbucks to even consider doing something like this to each individual drink. However I think this is kind of what we are all looking for when we make our way into a coffee shop and sink into the over-stuffed chairs, don't you? Not necessarily the art itself - that is just a bonus - but the time and care that is put into each cup of coffee.
According to Duckworth, the espresso temperature and foam have to be absolutely perfect or the designs won't hold, so you know that they have crafted a stellar cup of coffee for you.
Earlier this month, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz wrote a company memo that expressed concern over what he termed the "Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience." StarbucksGossip.com first posted the memo online and its authenticity was later confirmed by Starbucks, then picked up by more traditionalmediaoutlets.
The memo basically said that because of the rapid and wide-reaching expansion of the company, as well as the desire to do so quickly and efficiently, there has been a "watering down of the Starbucks experience." For example, switching to automatic espresso machines removed "much of the romance and theater that was in play with the use of the La Marzocca machines (the manual machines the stores used to have)." Another issue Schultz had was with the store designs, which have become too standard, too sterile and, in some cases, too distanced from actual coffee.
Speed and quality are important to any food service business, but not at the expense of experience of the customers' enjoyment and Shultz is proposing that they start making some changes to recapture that coffee shop experience that Starbucks first offered. There won't be a full-scale reversal in company strategy in pursuit of this goal. Instead, changes will be implemented gradually to move the stores away from the cookie-cutter, fast food chain genre while still chasing a larger global presence. Examples of this include having baristas measure out freshly roasted coffee beans, rather than having them in prepackaged bags, and changing the merchandise to have more coffee-centric merchandise, like grinders and brewers, instead of stuffed animals.
The changes planned for now seem small, but getting the aroma of freshly roasted beans back into the stores is a step in the right direction.
This week's NYT food section delves into New York City cafes whose baristas truly deserve the title. Before we go any further let me say that I've had my share of Starbucks espressos. Regardless of their caffeine kick, they're overroasted and bitter.
As the article states, one of the things that makes a great barista is having a machine that allows the operator to control the process. Roughly stated, the elements that contribute to the perfect cup are the quality of the beans, the temperature at which to brew a particular bean and how much pressure one uses to tamp the ground coffee. The perfect espresso is capped with a thick, ruddy crema. Instead of having a burnt taste, it should be redolent of such aromatic notes as jasmine and orange.
An ace espresso isn't the sole hallmark of top baristas. They should also be able to pour exquisite cappuccinos topped with freshly steamed milk. But how do baristas raise the bar? By pouring the milk in such a way as to create hearts, fern leaves and other patterns in the crema of your afternoon pick-me-up.
Hot on the heels of our discussion about tipping, the NY Daily News came out with a piece about tipping tips from the experts. That is to say that they went to people in each industry and asked what an appropriate tip was. They (rightly) point out that in some cases, tips can make the difference between making a living - or not, though it seems that more people are gettting tipped than ever before. The article covers cab drivers (20%), hair stylists (15-20%) and doormen ($5-$10). It also mentions that babysitters and camp counselors are tipped, something which I am positive did not happen when I was the one watching neighborhood kids on Saturday nights.
The most relevant to us here at Slashfood is, of course, the restaurant tipping guide.
The average restaurant tip in New York City is 18.8%. "Leave 20% if you're really happy with the service, 18% if the service was good and 15% if you're unhappy, [Tim Zagat, of the Zagat guide], advised."
Tip 15-20% on drinks in a bar and the same at "modest coffee shops."
Pizza delivery should justify 10-20%, especially if you live in a walk-up.
Tips are optional for the guy at the deli that makes sandwiches to-go.
A Starbucks representative told the Daily News that it was not necessary to tip baristas to get legendary service - but( trust me) they appreciate it and always remember someone who tips well.
I have always wondered why people have problems saying the drink names at Starbucks. I'm not just speaking
about the sizes, Tall, Grande and Venti, either. I'm talking about words like "latte." I notice men actually
mispronounce the words on purpose. They will plaster a big grin on their face and, sarcastically, say something like
"I'll have a 'grand kap-po-see-no.'" I kid you not - and when you come into a Starbucks every single
morning, you will learn, at some point, the proper pronunciation of the names. How hard is it to
say 'grahn-day,' really.
I generally chalked it up to some sort of testosterone-based insecurity because women almost never do this; the
fear of saying a word incorrectly by chance was so great that these men preferred to grossly mispronounce the words on
purpose. The question is: why be insecure?
Tom Hanks just might be seen at a Starbucks near
you - wearing that green employee apron, not on the customer side of the counter. Universal just picked up the rights to an as-yet-unpublished book by
Michael Gates Gill about a man who, fired from his executive job, is forced to start over in the service industry,
working at a coffee shop. The movie, titled How Starbucks Saved My Life, is slated to begin production later
this year. Though the memoir is based on events that happened in the late 1960's, it seems likely that the movie will
be set in the present.
Don't forget to
stop by a Starbucks between 10-12 today, March 15th. If you didn't catch our notice last week, Starbucks is
hosting a Coffee Break. Every Starbucks will be giving out free tall-sized, 12-ounce regular coffees to anyone who
drops by. This may not apply to Starbucks locations that are in supermarkets or bookstores, because they are not
operated by the Starbucks corporation, but licensed to the stores they are located in - so make sure you are at a
regular Starbucks location. If you are nice to the baristas, they may even have some samples of their favorite pastries
to pass out!
How to
gauge the state of the economy? Head to your nearest Starbucks and assess the mood. It's called the Bad Barista Index
and, according to commentator Mark Rovner, it works in inverse to the health of the economy.
If the job market isn't
going so well, Rovner theorizes, excellent baristas abound and the Starbucks experience is a thing of caffeinated zen.
The customers are served quickly and well. "This happens not only with efficiency, but with panache. The barista's
hands are a lyrical blur of juggling cups and steaming milk. The cashier calls out drinks like a serenade, recognizing
the regulars and offering a bit of sassy wit," he says rapturously.
Do you go to coffee shops with any regularity? Are you there every day, or do you make it a weekend thing? Whenever you go, have you ever wondered about the 
After reading 
I want a coffee shop in my hometown 
Earlier this month, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz wrote a company memo that expressed concern over what he termed the "Commoditization of the Starbucks Experience." 
This week's 
Hot on the heels of our 
I have always wondered why people have problems saying the drink names at Starbucks. I'm not just speaking
about the sizes, Tall, Grande and Venti, either. I'm talking about words like "latte." I notice men actually
mispronounce the words on purpose. They will plaster a big grin on their face and, sarcastically, say something like
"I'll have a 'grand kap-po-see-no.'" I kid you not - and when you come into a Starbucks every single
morning, you will learn, at some point, the proper pronunciation of the names. How hard is it to
say 'grahn-day,' really.
Tom Hanks just might be seen at a Starbucks near
you - wearing that green employee apron, not on the customer side of the counter. Universal just 
Don't forget to
stop by a Starbucks between 10-12 today, March 15th. If you didn't catch our 
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