A Day in the Life of a Barista Trainee at Oriole Coffee
I was formerly a barista trainer at The Line Restaurant at Shangri-la Hotel. I quit rather than having to compromise on quality issues. Now, I’m a barista trainee at Oriole Coffee. Does this bother me? Let me elaborate ….
My work day starts at 7.00 am. I open up the Republic Plaza outlet of Oriole Coffee Espresso and Brew Bar together with my colleagues. I get to calibrate coffee that is roasted the week before by a chap who was the Singapore National Barista Champion 2 years running. Never mind the machine I’m pulling espresso on, named by Gizmodo as the barista’s wet dream machine, the La Marzocco Strada EP, the first of its kind in Asia, and the equally stupendous beauty of a grinder, the Mazzer Robur. I get to calibrate espresso on 1 of the 2 supplied naked portafilters. I record tasting notes of the daily brew, having written down words like “sandalwood”, “granny smith apples”, and “blueberries”. I juggle between pulling shots from each of the 3 PID’d groupheads, maintaining a consistent syrupy mousetail pour, taking turns dosing up to 3 portafilters or hopefully making brilliantly foamed milk the likes of glossy white paint, hopefully delighting customers and myself when I should draw a decent looking rosetta leaf or heart, my trainer all the while stressing the importance of the taste of the milk based drink rather than the art, and should anything go wrong with the pour from the use of experimental VST baskets designed with cutting edge technology I’ve only previously read about from coffee newsgroups, then the …. get this, the R & D team made up of not 1, but 2 Singapore National Barista Champions pay us a visit with their bag full of intricate equipment not limiting to syringes, refractometer, a coffee metering iPhone app that can’t be found on the App Store. They spew forth terms like Total Dissolved Solids, Solubles Concentration, Extraction Yields, and take numerous readings using eye-droppers full of coffee, all the while punching in numbers into their iPhones. End of the day, they do make a difference. And the customers. They KNOW and appreciate the effort. My colleagues? They talk more coffee than I do, and make drinks as if they were going about their routines during the barista championships.
Do I mind being a barista trainee at Oriole Coffee? Are you kidding?
Naked pour from a La Marzocco Strada
HELL YEAHHHHHH!!!!!!! :)))
Sounds great Colin! I’m envious. Your story reminds me of the days when I started Karate. After six months of hard training, I got my green belt and thought I’d made it … then a brown belt kicked my ass. Six years later, I got my Black belt 1st Dan. I thought I’d made it … then a 5th Dan kicked my ass. Since then, I have always beleived that none of us ever really ‘make it’. We’re always learning and improving, and the journey is the fun part. As long as we all appreciate the daily wonder of learning, we’re doing just fine. You have obviously just started the next leg of your journey and clearly attending one of the best coffee ‘universities’ in town. Keep blogging about it, as us poor office-bound folks that keep you guys in a job, can only dream of life behind a portafilter, rather than a mouse. ;)
Glaad u love working with us back at RP. Glad to have u as part of our team man.. the knowledge u gave us was priceless man.. peace dude
Hi Colin,
It was great working with you for the Bodum demo too! See you and the fabulous team around :)
[...] by some as being “one of the best coffee universities around,” Oriole Coffee is no stranger to technology. Oriole Coffee never ceases to be on the forefront when [...]
[...] by some as being “one of the best coffee universities around,” Oriole Coffee is no stranger to technology. Oriole Coffee never ceases to be on the forefront when [...]
[...] by some as being “one of the best coffee universities around,” Oriole Coffee is no stranger to technology. Oriole Coffee never ceases to be on the forefront when [...]