Barista experience

Ever heard of a barista before? A barista is someone who works at a coffee shop and of course he/she is the one who prepares and makes the drinks. Bartender on the other hand is for alcoholic beverages where some of them juggles the bottles.

My first job was at a coffee shop but I was only a food server and a kitchen staff when I started. I wasn't allowed to make any drink other than our house blend iced tea which was already prepared ahead of time that I just have to transfer it in a glass full of ice, place a straw, serve and that's it. Aside from our house blend iced tea we were allowed to prepare hot tea which I just have to place in a French press, add hot water and serve with a cup and saucer. Easy right? Effortless drinks were done by the servers. So whenever our team leaders would make a coffee, I would look at them and be amazed with how beautiful they make a simple cup of coffee. From lattes to cappuccino and to cafe mochas, I am always in awed whenever I serve those drinks. That time I really wanted to learn how to make a beautiful cup of coffee but one of our team leaders was so strict that he didn't want us servers to learn. Though his reason was very valid and we respected that. Good thing one of the team leaders whom we became close with and who was always on our shift would teach us how to make each of the drinks in our menu.

From server I was promoted as a team leader so when they were teaching me the recipes, I already knew almost all of the recipes. Everything were easy for me except latte art. Though it was not really required to put art on our latte drinks, I just wanted to learn how to make even a single leaf or a heart on my latte but I really couldn't make it. Plus it wasn't all the time that somebody orders latte so there was no way that I could practice it back then so I really couldn't perfect mine.

When I resigned from the company, I thought I wouldn't be able to get near a coffee machine ever again but I was able to work again in a coffee shop on my 3rd job. There we had classroom training first that we were taught the importance of pulling a perfect shot. I don't want to go into details but it has to have the heart, body and crema and it should be extracted within 25-30 seconds. I still remembered my training. LOL. I loved working in this company because I was able to feel that I was really a barista where drinks were never ending especially when we had a buy one take one promo. Order slips were piling up in the ticket holder that we wouldn't know where to place other incoming orders anymore. We weren't allowed to write anything on the cups as for our company if is very sacred as it represents our company color and logo.

There were even times that with a lot of orders, we would have forgotten to put a particular ingredient or we would have doubled the pumps or the amount of syrup. It happens especially if you are thinking of the next drink that you are going to make. Or there were also times that we would be making the same drink for a particular order. Miscommunication? Yes. But the good thing about it is that we can sell it right away because coffee was a sellable item. The person behind the cash register just have to suggest it. Well if no one bought it within the allotted time frame, it will be our employee's beverage for the day since we were entitled for 1 tall drink per day. That was before so I don't know if they still give employee's drink nowadays. Back then my migraine was still not that extreme because what bothers me during those times was my gallstones that I thought was only gastritis. But when I found out that too much coffee triggers my migraine, I changed my drink to non-coffee and sometimes I would exchange my drink for a chicken from someone from our sister company. They were entitled for a quarter of a chicken everyday as part of their employee's meal.

So why the sudden reminsce about my barista experience? If you have notice some of my recent posts on noise.cash, it was either iced latte, iced black coffee or iced Americano and just today it was iced white mocha. Because of the hot (or should I say extremely hot) weather here in the Philippines, iced coffee became my remedy to prevent my migraine. Although there were times that it doesn't work but still I drank iced coffee. It may or may not help with my migraine but it sure helped me beat the heat but not that totally as it's really very, very hot.

FUN FACT: having a coffee shop was one of the goals that I wanted to achieve after I have experience how to handle it first hand.

But where's my coffee shop now? Still lingering on my mind and still dreaming about it. LOL. I know it doesn't need to have an espresso machine right away as I can manually brew my coffee although it actually makes life easier to have one. That's why I admire some people who were former baristas and they have started to put up their own coffee shops during this pandemic. Some of them even transformed their houses into a coffee shop. Those are the kind of stories that we need to hear during these tough times. They relied on their skills, experiences, hardwork, dreams and their positivism and those are what led them to where they are today. I don't know where mine is because I think they are scattered all over the house. LOL.

Who knows maybe one of these days I would also be selling some coffee drinks right? I still remember some of our recipes but of course I have to tweak it as I might get a lawsuit for making money from their signature drinks. Just like every barista would say, "once a barista, always a barista".

Are you a coffee lover? Have you ever wanted to work as a barista or have you experimented with your coffee? What other coffee shops have you tried before? What's your top 3 favorite coffee shops and drinks?