Barista training part 1: Adventures in Coffeeland

Earlier this month five of us set out on a road trip to learn about coffee — what constitutes the best beans, the best way to roast those beans, and how to turn those beans into the best cup of coffee. Yes, that’s right, the whole team from CEO to designers to café manager took barista training. This is part of my plan to understand as much as I can about every aspect of LaunchPad Coworking — even the cafe.

It took us about three hours to drive from Austin out to Spring, Texas, where Cuvee Coffee is located. Spring, for the record, is so not Italy. It’s Anywhere, USA — miles of national franchises and generic shopping centers. Even Cuvee, despite being an independent artisan roaster, is hidden away in the back of an ugly strip mall.

Our host and instructor for the day was Dan, who got his start in the world of coffee back as a barista in College Station during his days as an Aggie. Now he’s an expert in the agriculture of coffee beans, and he brews and pulls a mean shot.

We began with a mini-tour of the place, past the “green room” where big burlap sacks of raw coffee beans are stored. Then we moved to the roasting room, manned by Mike, owner of Cuvee. Mike roasts small batches of hand-selected beans from around the world. As you might guess, the first thing that hits you when you enter the roasting room is the aroma. It’s a contact high filling you with the wish for a huge home roaster to duplicate the scent on a regular basis.

Then it was off to the cupping room. Cupping is a funny word — try saying it ten times fast. This is the place where Dan and Mike use a mini-roaster — “The Little Roaster That Could” is what we dubbed it upon seeing its bright red grinning face. Selecting from samples provided by distributors, they roast a half pound at a time and then brew it adjusting variables such as water-to-bean ratio and water temperature.

The results are placed in little cups, side by side, and for tasting purposes we each grabbed a soup spoonful of coffee (no sugar, no cream) and with a quick inhale, slurped as loudly as we could. For our tasting, we tried three cups of Clover coffee. Clover is the name of a machine invented in Seattle a few years ago that uses a technique that involves a cross between French press and vacuum brewing.

The sloppy slurping sounds pretty ridiculous but Dan informed us that it was the best way to get your taste buds wrapped around the full flavor. We dribbled, we coughed, we laughed. We tested three different brew times — different in length by seconds. Isn’t this kind of splitting hairs?

Yes. Which led us to a discussion about coffee drinkers. We came up with broad categories — the true connoisseur, the faux connoisseur, and the coffee drinker simply interested in a good cup of brew. We all fell into the last category upon arrival, but after two hours it became pretty clear that with our new knowledge — just enough to make us dangerous — we were well on our way to becoming certifiable coffee snobs.

We tried a limited number of cups. Mike and Dan, however, often have to try up to a dozen different kinds in a single sitting. To fight off “palate fatigue” they use a few strategies:

• Eat breakfast before the cupping.
• Clear palate between slurps with club soda.
• Limit yourself to five or six tastings.
• Remember that espresso tastings are harder.

And then there was the unspoken rule, which we came up with: Remember that if you throw yourself full force into a tasting, you will soon be bouncing off the walls.

Thanks to Tori Breitling and Marie Hwang for the awesome photos!

Barista training part 2: Brew ha-ha
Barista training part 3: Brews Clues
Barista training part 4: Hot & Steamy