History of the barista profession
Choosing a profession is one of the most important stages in every person’s life. There is a huge variety of fields of activity where we can realize and manifest ourselves. But there are professions that impress established people, causing a desire to change the field of activity right now. This is exactly the profession of a “barista”.
In the understanding of our generation, a barista is a specialist who knows everything about coffee and knows how to prepare this magical invigorating drink in all its variations. At the same time, few people know that initially this term was applied to professionals of a slightly different profile – bartenders. Translated from Italian, this definition means: “a person working at the bar.” This term acquired a modern interpretation in the early 80s of the last century, when the Starbucks coffee chain, which is popular today, began to actively develop.
It all started with a trip by Govord Schultz, the founder of the Starbucks chain, to Italy, where he saw the virtuoso work of local bartenders, who were called baristas. Schultz was so fascinated by what he saw that he decided to take photos and videos of “tricks” at the bar in order to introduce the skills of professionals into the network of his coffee shops. From that moment on, interest in this profession began to grow steadily. But, unlike in Russia, where a “barista” is called a specialist capable of using a coffee machine to prepare more than forty variants of coffee, in European countries representatives of this profession can perform the duties of a bartender, waiter and even a cleaner.
Who is a barista?
At first glance, it seems that anyone can master the profession of a barista. This opinion is erroneous, because first of all it is a real professional who not only knows how to cook more than forty varieties of coffee drink, but also has a solid number of author’s recipes. A barista must have impeccable taste in order to instantly “catch” the taste preferences of coffee connoisseurs and create fundamentally new variations based on them.
The duties of a barista also include impeccable knowledge of all varieties of coffee, the degree of roasting of the beans, their places of growth, aromas and flavors of a drink made from one variety of coffee beans and their combination. In addition, a true professional understands how much coffee needs to be placed in a coffee machine, how much water it needs to be diluted, how to tamper and under what pressure to cook so that the drink turns out to be truly divine. This requirement applies to all coffee recipes.
Every year, under the auspices of the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe and the Specialty Coffee Association of America, international coffee mastery championships are held, where representatives from different countries of the world are invited to prepare twelve coffee drinks in fifteen minutes for evaluation by the jury. Isn’t this the best confirmation of the popularity of this profession?
source:
https://www.coffeedom.ru/post/history/istorija-professii-barista
