How to be a Barista, or: Barista FAQ

After my last post, which I published approximately two minutes ago (again, I know I post too often), it occurred to me that being a barista is a pretty popular job that a lot of people want. And it's not surprising, you go into a cute little coffee shop you like: the atmosphere is great, the people are friendly and having fun, who wouldn't want to work there? What a lot of people don't realize is, although you don't need a degree to do it, it's also not as easy to get a job in a coffee shop as you might think. I have, thusly, taken it upon myself to write this nice little article answering common questions and explaining things about being a barista!
You may be wondering what qualifications I have to be writing all of this. I have fourteen months of experience as a barista and have worked at three different coffee shops, which I think has given me a well rounded view of the industry as a whole. I've worked at Starbucks and two local coffee shops, which pretty much covers the entire spectrum (considering that Starbucks and the local coffee shops are definitely on different ends of the spectrum!) At the first local coffee shop I had training at their local roasting plant where I learned a ton of things about roasting beans, the maintenance of espresso machines, and primarily steaming milk. Seriously, we stood around and steamed milk for like two hours, but I consider it a good thing. My technique is flawless and my foam is like an orgasm of the mouth. After that it was pretty much just practice, practice, practice. I don't really like espresso drinks (I know! Blashpemy!), instead I prefer drinks made with drip coffee. It just tastes better to me, and it also has more caffeine. Despite that, I know what good espresso tastes like compared to bad espresso, and over time I have perfected the art: I also can tell what people want, after a little clarification, so it's not like I just make what I think people want, I actually had them a drink they enjoy. Enough bragging, we'll be moving on!

What do coffee shops want in a barista? 
1) Experience - sometimes. When I decided I wanted to make coffee, I applied at many, many different coffee shops. I dreamt of working at this impossibly hip and cool coffee house in down town Boise, where I'd been with my mom once or twice. It didn't happen. As it turned out, the only place I could get a job was at Starbucks. They seem to be one of the only coffee shops that doesn't require some previous experience. Since then I've found one or two local coffee shops that actually prefer that you don't have experience (something along the lines of they don't want you to have bad habits, so if you have no experience you're essentially a coffee virgin and they can ensure that you're trained the "right" way), but for the most part this is not common. Obviously, this makes it kind of difficult to get a job at a good coffee house if you haven't done it before, but don't be discouraged: you can wow them other ways.
2) Knowledge. I didn't drink a lot of coffee before I started working as a barista. All I knew was that a mocha was chocolate and hot and a frappuccino was blended and cold, and I liked that. I did, however, know what a chai mocha was, which is more than I can say for some baristas. What I've noticed about a lot of customers is that they have their one favorite drink, and that's the only drink they know. It's good to know the build up of all of the basic drinks: latte, cappuccino, americano, mocha, etc. (See the end of this entry for a basic explanation of coffee drinks!). And if you know what a ristretto shot, con panna, and real macchiatto are? Even better.
3) Energy. Seriously, the more hyper you are, the better. If you are out going, friendly, and energetic enough at your interview, that may just be enough to get you the job without any other qualifications. Of course, every coffee shop is different. All of them are going to want you to be friendly, of course, but some might care more than others. For example, Dutch Brothers. Just go to one and you'll see what I mean. SO. MUCH. ENERGY! I can honestly say from my work, nothing is more irritating than a co-worker who won't talk to the customer, won't call out the name of the drink, ask them how their day is going, and telling them to have a good night. It's a huge part of the job.

Why is Starbucks bad?
Oh man, don't get me started. Okay, I'm started. Starbucks is bad because a) they're a big, bad corporation...you know, just like Wal-mart, and b) they definitely do not make the best coffee. I don't know all the in's and out's and facts about big, bad corporations, so I won't go into that other than to say that, obviously, they're very bad for local economy and local (good!) coffee shops. Starbucks baristas are not real baristas. Admittedly, I have only my time as an employee there to go off of, but based on what I've seen from going into other Starbucks, I think it's a pretty standard experience.
We'll start with their coffee. They use automatic espresso machines, which essentially means you put the beans in a container on top of the machine, push a button, and the espresso shots come out. Why is this bad? The barista has little to no control over the quality of the shots. A lot of this has to do with the time, meaning, the amount of time it takes for the shots to fully produce themselves. Ideally, a perfect espresso shot will take between 17 and 23 seconds to fill up the shot glass. If it's too fast, it will be watery. If it's too slow, it will be bitter. When you are using an automatic espresso machine, the beans are ground, tamped (essentially packing the grounds together) and pulled all with the push of one button. The tamping of the grounds also has a lot to do with how short or long your shots are. With a semi automatic machine you are usually tamping the grounds yourself, and you also control when the shots stop and start.
A lot of people complain that Starbucks burns their beans when they are roasting them. Dan and his friend (my sister's boyfriend) both used to work at the roasting plant in Nevada and agree with this. I haven't been to a roasting plant and I almost never had drip coffee while working there, so I will refrain from commenting on this. I can say, however, that their espresso is not the best I have ever tasted. In fact, it's pretty bad.
They leave their milk sitting out for way too long. When I worked at Starbucks, there would be up to six or seven pitchers of steamed milk sitting out on the counter with thermometers stuck in them - as long as the thermometer showed that the milk was in the red section, we could use that milk to make a drink. That. Is. Nasty. You always want fresh milk for your drinks, it just tastes better. If you must re-use milk, the best method to use is to put the picture of steamed milk into the fridge, and then when you need to use it again, add a little bit more of the same type of milk and re-steam this, but you only want to do this once. Never, ever re-steam milk more than once!
Starbucks teaches their baristas almost nothing. Oh sure, they give you a folder full of different books on working the espresso machine, drip coffee, and cold drinks but...they're books. As someone who knew very little about coffee to begin with, being sent off to sit at a table and read a book by myself for two hours taught me nothing about actually making an espresso drink. As if that weren't bad enough, after I was "officially certified" as a barista I almost never got to work on the bar, i.e. making drinks. Instead they stuck me on cash register or drive thru so I had almost no hands-on learning. The only time I got to make drinks was when there was absolutely no one else there to do it, and more than likely I messed them up and they were nasty drinks.
Also, they aren't the best employers ever. They brag about offering benefits to anyone with an average of 24 hours per quarter, but then they'll cut your hours just before the end of the quarter so you won't get benefits. They're notorious for over staffing and over scheduling and sending you home early. They are so fake: not just to customers, which is appalling to me, but with each other, as co-workers. Fake friendliness is almost worse than just being down right rude. Also, the assistant manager actually threw stuff one morning when she frustrated. Scary!

What do you mean, "real" macchiatto?
This is possibly my biggest pet peeve with Starbucks. You may be familair with one of their signature drinks, the "caramel macchiatto", as they call it. In traditional espresso, a macchiatto is one or two shots of straight espresso with a dollop of foam on top. In contrast, Starbucks' "caramel macchiatto" is a vanilla latte with caramel sauce on top. Two totally different things. Why did they name it so? To keep their customers. Someone goes into Starbucks, orders one of these atrocities, and likes it. The next day they go to a local coffee shop and order the same thing. What do they get? A real macchiatto, and they are totally disgusted, so they decide that this coffee shop doesn't know what they're talking about and keep going back to Starbucks. Admittedly, it doesn't work this way much so often. Most baristas have, by now, figured out what this "caramel macchiatto" thing is and when asked for one, will clarify if they want vanilla latte or a real machiatto. But it's still really irritating.

How much do baristas get paid?
Obviously, this varies widely from state to state. When I first started, the standard starting pay for baristas was $7.00. At the time this was more than minimum wage, so not bad. Since then minimum wage has gone up to $7.25 in Idaho and from what I gather, this is now the standard starting pay for baristas. However, you should take tips into consideration, which in the right setting, can greatly increase your income.

So what about tips?
Tips usually work in one of two ways. Either all of the tips are pooled together at the end of the week and divvied out to the employees based on how many hours they worked, or you take home the tips from your shift: for example, if you are working with someone else, you split the tips in half during the time you worked together. If they leave and you are working alone for awhile, you keep all of the tips made during that time. The former is supposed to be a more "fair" way of divvying up tips, like if someone is working when it's really, really slow, they're not missing out. I highly dislike this method, though. I've always made more money in tips when I get to keep what I'm actually bringing in, and I find it very unfair to have to share my full tip jar with the unfriendly girl who does a crappy job who is working the day after me. Not. Cool. Legally speaking, you are supposed to report your tips as income when you do your taxes. Starbucks is the only place that actually enforced this; everywhere else you worked, you got your tips in cash, and it was up to you what you did with them. I find it very ridiculous that the government tries to tax tips, which are in essence a gift. You can't tax gifts! So anyways, how much you make in tips will vary based on how friendly you are (the friendlier you are and the better the drink you're making, the bigger tip you will get!) and how they are divvied out, either weekly pool or per shift, and also how busy your shop is. At Starbucks I made between $20 and $30 a week in tips. Not a lot to brag about. At one local coffee shop that did tips by shift, I made anywhere from $15 to $50 per day, and it wasn't even a busy shop! At my last job, which was done by weekly pool, I averaged at $80 and I would say it was a fairly busy but not packed shop. At some popular drive thru coffee shops I've heard baristas say they make anywhere from $30 to $90 in one shift, and then if you get into the bikini barista category, which is almost something all on it's own, it's not uncommon to make over $100 a day.

What are some things I should know about being a barista before I apply?
You're not likely to be a full time employee. Unless they are a supervisor or managers, and sometimes not even then, baristas are almost always part time. When thinking about how much pay you want to ask for you should keep tips in mind, $7.25/hour may not sound like much, but tips may add several dollars an hour to your pay. Of course, every shop varies, so be sure to ask how they divvy up their tips and see if you can ask the other baristas what they average per week or day.
You need to be able to get up really, really early in the morning. Coffee shops open anywhere from 5:00am to 7:00am, and when you need to actually be at work will differ. To give you an example, at job #1 we opened at 5:00am and I had to be to work at 4:15am if I was opening. At job #2 we opened at 6:00am and I had to be there at 5:00am. At job #3 we opened at 7:00am and I had to be there at 6:00am, so it varies greatly, but chances are you're going to have to be waking up before 5:30 in the morning.
Be prepared to work alone. The only coffee shop I worked at where I was never alone was Starbucks. Most other shops will find you working alone in the morning or at night, so it's something to consider if you're uncomfortable working without another employee there.


Espresso and Coffee Drinks 101
These are the basic ingrediants for most espresso and coffee drinks. Espresso is a stronger and more highly concentrated type of coffee and is added to drinks in "shots", like shots of alchohol, for example. A standard for most sizes is two shots, but many people like to add extra shots to their drinks. And obviously, coffee is just coffee, like what you make in your coffee maker at home. Flavors can be added to most anything in coffee, syrup, or sauce form, it differs from shop to shop what type and how much flavor is added to drinks. Unless other wise noted, pretty much all of these drinks can also be made iced, either by using a shaking or but pouring over ice and not steaming the milk. (Using the shaker is a better method, though!)

Cafe au Lait - half drip coffee and half steamed milk, Starbucks calls it a "cafe misto".
Shot in the dark - drip coffee with shots of espresso - this goes by a lot of other names.
Americano - shots of espresso and hot water.
Cafe latte - shots of espresso and steamed milk, often referred to as just a "latte".
Cafe mocha - chocolate, shots of espresso, and steamed milk, often referred to as just a "mocha". Also white mochas are pretty popular.
Cafe breve - espresso and steamed half and half, often referred to as just a "breve". 
Cappuccino - 1/3 espresso, 1/3 milk, and 1/3 foam is the basic set up for a cappuccino. Essentially, it's a really light and foamy drink. Some people prefer it more "wet", meaning more milk, or more "dry", meaning with more foam.
Espresso- just plain shots of espresso, served to the customer immediately after they are pulled. (espresso has a time limit: it should be "saved" by mixing with milk or sugar/syrup as soon as possible, preferably milk, this with maintain the quality of the shot. Otherwise the standard time limit is ten seconds before the shot goes bad.)
Con panna - shots of espresso with a dollop of whipped cream on top.
Cubano - shots of espresso pulled over raw sugar.
Macchiatto - shots of espresso with a dollop of foam on top.

So, there's some basics as far as coffee and baristas go. I hope you have found this informational and also fun, if a bit wordy. There's really so much to cover I could never get it all down in one blog entry without it being roughly the size of a novel, but these are just some things I wondered about when I was new and getting into it. Have fun!