To be a Barista, the fine art of coffee making

Feb 26 2008 By Richard Mooney

This week I was offered the chance to sample some Barista training at the Tutti Tuscan Grille in the Palace Grounds.

Needless to say, being the coffee lover that I am, I jumped at the chance to sample some of Hamilton’s finest coffee.

Evan the Barista was on hand to demonstrate how to make the perfect coffee. You can see it here.

For those of you who don’t know exactly what a Barista is, Claire the manager of the Tutti Tuscan Grille explains.

“A Barista is a coffee specialist.They’re someone who knows about the beans and knows about the grinding and preparation of coffee.

“They’re someone who can prepare the coffee to the best quality that you want it too be, so they’ll understand how much coffee you need against how much water you use. So they’re essentially a coffee expert.

“The job also involves the preparation and storage of coffee. Storage is very important when it comes to coffee because it must be air tight and it must be dark.

"Particularly when you ground the coffee you can’t let it get too dry because it will affect the flavour of the coffee. So, for example, at night if we’ve got some coffee groundings left over they get put into a sealed box and then they are refrigerated.

“It sounds silly but getting a decent coffee is quite a fine art. Anyone can make an instant coffee but to make a decent ground coffee you do have to have solid training.”