Talking about coffee shops and coffee culture that are growing rapidly, we cannot help but talking about coffee makers or better known as baristas. Nowadays, almost every coffee shop has a qualified barista, equipped with savvy coffee maker and complete ingredients. It does not stop there; barista schools and barista certification has become more familiar to the community.
So, what does a Barista do? Simply making coffee?
Etymologically, the word barista comes from Italian languange which means bartender, namely those who serve all kinds of drinks, not just coffee. Along with the time and coffee trends penetrating America and Europe, the word Bartender then being adopted.
While in Italy, barista is often known as baristi (for men) or bariste (for women). Their job is to measure how much temperature and pressure is needed to make espresso. Why espresso? Because espresso is known as a complicated drink, therefore making espresso manually requires specific skills.
To this day, baristas can not only be judged by the ability to make espresso but also from other abilities such as manual brewing, roasting, coffee cupping to latte art. They are also required to have knowledge about types of coffee, tastes and other stories related to the origin of coffee. Such skills can add value to their profesion.
Various kinds of knowledge and skills related to coffee can be obtained by joining a coffee academy or coffee class.
As time goes, baristas as a profesion becomes more popular. The barista competition held at the national to international level shows that interest of the profession is getting higher. Classes, training, or worksop for Barista continuously being held in big cities in Indonesia. With their skills, the barista can be a selling power in a coffee shop. People might view the barista as a genius behind a cup of delicious coffee served in front of them. Watching baristas work adjusting water temperature to maximize coffee flavor or using accurate scales to calculate the right ratio for serving coffee is another thing that we can enjoy at coffee shops.
