My Mission...

As of late, my career as a Barista has been very uncertain, and I have spent much time figuring out the next best move for me and what I want out of my love for coffee.

I have come to a few conclusions and have figured out what my barista mission is and how I need to pull it off.

Lets call it Barista Mission: Possible! Because, I'm a nerd.

As you have read, and you better have read it, my road so far has been simple and yet rocky. However, I have been fortunate enough to train with great people and companies. Threw all my training, experiences with different customers, and my experience behind the bar as just a barista and not a store owner, I have realized what I believe to truly matter to me and my future in coffee.

In this day and age of coffee, everything has changed from authentic coffee and completely taken away from what the drink should be.
Thank you, Starbucks.
However, there remain some amazing places; small and beautiful shops, with the heart and passion that I really admire about a shop.

Those shops are authentic, hand build by the blood, sweat, and tears of the passionate owners who took their dream and made it a reality. Those shops are strong, maybe not making millions in coffee sales, maybe not making magazine headlines, but they are making real coffee and keeping real coffee alive in the United States.

To me, and this is just my personal opinion, there is no one perfect cup of coffee. Every single coffee drinker has a different pallet and all of them like different things. So, contrary to what I have said in the past, my goal is to no longer make the perfect cup of coffee, but to understand the way to make everyone THEIR OWN personal perfect cup of coffee.

It no longer matters to me if they like cream in their black coffee (Ok, it might matter a bit...), or if they like iced lattes with syrup, dark roasts, light roasts, any of it. I want to learn from the Countries best baristas, roasters, and brewers, how to make coffee the best I can so that I can give my customers the perfect cup for them.


My goal used to be to work in a shop, make enough money to be happy, perfect my methods, and hopefully open my own shop.
But, now I see that there is no way to grow and learn if I only perfect my methods and keep a small window of education. Now, I see that I need, and want, to go beyond that, I want to go and learn from the amazing people who have dedicated their life to coffee and who make wonderful cups every single day. Who have tried every brewing method they can, who have perfected their own methods, so that I can learn from them, so that I can better understand that being a Barista is not just sticking to one method, but expanding beyond that and growing with this beautiful coffee community that is hiding behind Starbucks and 7/11 coffee.

For the next three years I plan on visiting the best coffee shops, roasters, and suppliers in country. I plan on learning from them, everything they are willing to share, and helping you and all of my customers find these amazing shops.

I do not want to take shops secrets or use other shops ideas for my own gain. What I hope to achieve is a new type of education in being a barista, instead of attending a class and letting that be my whole education, I plan on letting the shops educate me.

When I walk into a shop and order a drink, I don't just stand there on my phone, I watch the barista from step one to the final product. I watch their methods of tamping, mixing my drink, steaming the milk, their pour. I watch how they communicate orders to each other and how they run the bar. There is so much to be learned from the smallest of things and that is what I hope to achieve.

Now that I have done my preaching on my new plan, here it is, written out, for the whole world to see! and I will be using this blog to keep track of all the amazing places I visit and all the amazing things I learn on the road to opening my own shop.

YEAR 1

• Visit Shops threw out Virginia
• Build relationships local shops, roasters, and baristas
• Write about every shop I try and compile the things I learn from them
• Research coffee in every way I can
• Perfect my basic espresso drink making skills
• Find new areas to improve on

YEAR 2

• Expand to coffee shops and roasters up and down the west coast
• Start learning more about roasting
• Find new drinks, beyond basic espresso drinks, to try and perfect
• Roasting my own beans and creating blends
• Start building relationships with shops and roasters across the Country in hopes to find the best for my own shop one day

YEAR 3

• Get my business plan out and start building my shop, brick by brick
• Finalize the amazing roasters that I have picked to create an amazing coffee shop experience
• Start to put all of my education to practice and teach others all I have learned
• Master all the brewing methods that I have practiced for the past two years
• Open the doors to my own shop and make the perfect cup for each individual customers tastes.

I do not wish to ever forget the shops I will visit on this journey and will always help promote my fellow baristas career and education. Everyone who contributes to my journey and education will know just how much their influence in my life and career mean to me, and that's a promise.

This is not a journey I can take alone, but, I have faith in my fellow coffee enthusiasts, baristas, and roasters. I have faith that in three years time I will achieve my goals and start work on my next set of goals.

If you have any shop or roasters that you think I should check out, or my readers should check out, please post them and I will look at every single one of them.

The road so far...

Being such a new barista, I am so thankful that I have had the chance to learn all I have in the small amount of time I have been working in this field. Not everyone who starts this journey has the fortune of working with coffee greats such as Equator Coffees and Bunn.

My start in coffee was rocky and not something I ever expected. I have always adored coffee and the many methods of brewing it, however, I never imagined myself working in the industry.

Many of my friends were expert baristas and, despite what they think, I paid the utmost attention to all they had to say and admired their passion and love for it. That passion that they had soon rubbed off on me and I started learning more and more about coffee.

European coffee was what I started out with, having a true love for a authentic cappuccino or a shot of smooth espresso. Starbucks, and most new wave coffee, I found to be lacking in what I truly loved about coffee. Frappes and caramel macchiatos, burnt tasting espresso and overly sweetened, flavored drip coffees. It seemed like no one could make a real cup of coffee, espresso, or tea.

What happened to french press, pour over, or, my personal favorite, siphon? Yes there were places that did that, but they were far and few between, and most of the time their brews were extremely off. Water to grounds ratios were never consistent and almost always to weak or strong.

Then, I moved to Virginia Beach, VA. Where I found a whole new batch of coffee shops to try out and found myself at home rather quickly.

I first got a job at a very small coffee shop that was located inside a hospital. At first it seemed like it would be a nice, promising, place to work. But, that soon changed.

Training was the first sign that this shop did not have the best knowledge of coffee. There was one other barista who did have a passion for the perfect cup, but, she was a new wave coffee barista. All about crazy frappe contraptions and syrups in everything. At the time I was still questioning if this was even a job I wanted and if coffee was the field I wanted to be working in.

After a few months I started to ignore what the shop had "taught" me and did what I knew was right for making a great drink. This was hard, however, due to the fact I was working in very poor conditions.

The espresso machine had been neglected to the point of breaking down all the time and pulling some of the most fowl tasting espresso I have ever had in my life. Their coffee wasn't bad, however, the baristas would let pre-ground coffee sit, out in the open, all day long, before brewing it. The espresso machine was never rinsed, screen were never dropped unless I dropped them, and no one knew how to dial in the grinder at all, time a shot, or make any authentic drink.

Even though it was a horrible place to start off officially as a barista, it fueled my passions and I loved every drink I made. I came to realize that making coffee, talking coffee, and learning coffee was something I had to do and that I needed to expand my knowledge.

My time with them came to an end when I found a soon to open coffee shop in the Hilltop area of Virginia Beach.

The owner had passion and love for coffee. Not just coffee...REAL coffee! Espresso macchiatos, cappuccinos, new and amazing brewing methods. He was a man who had a true coffee connoisseurs dream and I knew his shop was going to be something new and unheard of in the area.

The time I spent waiting to hear back from him, to know I got the job, was quite nerve racking. But, it was well worth the wait. When I got the call and date for my first day I was more excited than you can imagine.

Since I started here I have learned more about the coffee industry then I could have learned on my own in such a short amount of time. I was lucky enough to land a dream job and plan on growing with this shop for a very long time.

In the past three months I have trained with Equator Coffee and Bunn, learning so much that I have been able to improve my drinks greatly. Working on the perfect foam, latte art, learning the different roasts, how to blend coffees, education coffee drinkers. Its what I do every single day, and its the most rewarding job I have had

This blog will be all the info I have learned and a map of my barista career, from start to finish. I want to share all my experiences learning and perfecting brewing methods and my barista skills. From one barista to another (or any coffee enthusiast).