More than a Taste

After starting our coffee education last year at William Angliss we made a plan to take another class before moving home to learn even more and try to perfect our espresso technique. With a free Saturday we thought that it would be the perfect time to take the next step - a TAFE certificate for being a Barista. Josh scoped out a couple schools but in the end it came down to convenience, schedules, and utilising a gift certificate that we received for our 5th anniversary. That combination brought us to BaristaBasics and before we knew it we were both confirmed for Barista Basics and Coffee Art classes.

The Basics course in the morning absolutely flew by covering the machine, the grinder (more important than we realised), and maintenance. Of course we had some time to make a few coffees to learn what a 'good' coffee was all about - Josh focused on cafe latte and capuccinos, while Kristi took more of a well-rounded approach and tried flat whites and machiatos as well. Both of us felt like we were starting to get better at texturing milk as well as dosing, tamping, and extracting the espresso.

Even with the speed of the morning, the afternoon session for coffee art really took things up a notch and we were flying through the etchings, fudge-decorating, and free pouring. It seemed even before we had finished attempting one set of designs the instructor had another all set to go and it was back to the machines to try to catch up. We were really amazed with some of the designs and equally impressed that we were successful with a few of them! We had a great time even though we felt rushed, and we're really looking forward to practicing more once we return home and can invest in a grinder and machine of our own. We can't promise ferns and hearts off the bat for your cafe latte, but Kristi does a really good flower and Josh makes a mean zig-zag!