What is a barista?

What is a barista? Is it a job position that you can build a career path? According to some surveys, about 54% of American people over 18 years old drink coffee every day; and there is 68% of people around the world drinking a cup of coffee within the first hour after waking up in the morning. Those figures indicate the enormous amount of coffee that be consumed daily. Therefore, the jobs related to coffee will never become out of style and get fear of having no customer. Among these jobs, barista is an attractive and flexible job that needs personal skills.

What is a barista in definition?

Barista is a word that indicates person who makes and serves coffee beverages at coffee shops, coffee chains and café. They usually stand behind the bar or counter and brew different types of coffee in orders of customers. This is really a job. It does a career without being out-of-fashion.

What is a barista going to have before brewing a cup of coffee?

Certificates. A barista does not need high academic education. They can be a high school diploma or a master, whatever. It does not matter as long as you are over 18 years old. However, a modern barista need to have a great knowledge of coffee and skills of making all the coffee based drinks, from regular coffee, espresso and other complicated coffee drinks to non-coffee beverages such as tea, mojito, etc.

Daily assignment. A good barista must know not only how to make all the drinks on the menu, but also the whole process of making coffee, including roasting, grinding and brewing. Most of coffee shops today choose to do all the processes by themselves to have their own coffee taste and ensure food safety. That is why a barista needs to know how to do all the works as well as have a full knowledge of coffee.

Coffee and anything else? In some cases, he or she also has to serve cakes, snacks and foods to customers such as sandwiches, salads or different cakes. Moreover, when not serving coffee, they are usually responsible in cleaning the shop and making sure the sanitary condition for it. Especially at the small coffee shops where not hire enough employees, baristas have to clean and organize preparation areas, clean tables and floors, empty garbage and maintain restrooms.

Art-oriented. A barista needs to have skilled hands to make beautiful and flavored coffee. It is a difficult task, which requires personal dexterity and artistry. As a cup of coffee requires not only a good taste, but also an attractive decoration of patterns, pictures and texts, baristas have to use their skilled hands to make art works from coffee foam, milk foam, etc.

Good attitude. Working as a server, this job position needs to have a friendly and thoughtful attitude to customers. They need to be nimble and precise to follow the exact requests of drinkers.

What is salary for a barista?

What is a barista going to earn with his job? First, people usually choose barista as a part-time job or shift work because of the flexibility of the job. They are paid by hour, which is called “wage”. Generally, a barista can make about $8.9 per hour. Of course, the wage depends on his or her experience and location of work. There are a lot of excellent baristas can be paid $12 per hour.

What is a barista’s training?

To become a barista, you can pursue plenty of ways. You can attend to barista training course, which is diverse at vocational schools. You also can find an experienced barista and learn everything from him or her during the process of working. Alternatively, in other word, we call it on-the-job training for barista. The more practicing you do, the better you are. Remember, even though this job requires aptitude, it is not impossible to learn all the skills. All you need is having passion and hard work.

To sum up, as a newbie, you always ask “What is a barista?”, “Is it worth doing this job?”, etc. Don’t worry too much as this is really an exciting job. A barista in theory is the one responsible for making different coffee recipes and other kinds of food and drink in a coffee shop. This job requires clever hands, sense of humor, taste awareness and artistic mind-set. If you are dreaming for a job where you can express yourself, barista is the right one for you.