MARK HUNGRY!

So as the current trainer of Victrola Coffee and now Whidbey Coffee as well, I’ve got a lot of stuff on my plate.  I’m working on building training programs for both companies as well as writing curriculums.  It all gets a bit mind numbing after a while! So today it was nice to take some time and continue my chow down on some fresh perspectives on coffee.

So whats on the menu?  Well we have Scott Rao’s “Professional Barista’s Handbook” which I’m half way through; Gimme! Coffee’s “Barista Manual 1.0″ which I’ve thoroughly devoured; as well Instaurator’s new and beautiful piece of work “The Espresso Quest” which I am about to dive into.  There’s always the classics as well: Dr Illy’s Espresso Coffee and Schomer’s Techniques of the Barista.

Writing a barista manual is no small undertaking, let alone an exhaustive treatise on espresso extraction or professional barista skill.  These guys have definitely given me some great brain-fodder and examples of well executed studies on coffee.

Gimme! Coffee has done a fine job in covering a very broad topic in a comprehensive yet straight-forward fashion.  I also greatly appreciate they’re transparency and willingness to share the ins and outs of what they do.  Specialty Coffee definitely has a reputation for harboring some “healthy” competition between cafes so it’s rare to see a company that will “spill the beans” and share their training manual.  It’s refreshing to see professionals who are seeking to share ideas and get feedback. I think the New York coffee scene really stands out with their efforts to cultivate an atmosphere of camaraderie between cafes and Gimme! is no exception.  Hopefully us Seattlites will take some cues from their example.

Scott Rao’s Barista Handbook is a wonderful introduction to artisan coffee.  I’d hand that to any barista looking to get up to pace with what baristas are doing today.  It’s a great read.  Hearing the results of all his personal experiments with espresso extraction and lots of great charts compiling his findings is exciting.  It’s good to get another perspective that offers a different way of looking at the same problems we all face behind the bar.

Lastly is an incredibly, beautiful romp through all-things-espresso with a  guy named Instaurator.  He was the Chairman of the Australian Coffee & Tea Association and has pretty much done everything there is to do with the subject.  The photos are breathtaking, I’ve never seen espresso so pretty!  The book is a thick, hardbound undertaking. It’d look great on any coffee table though it’s not gonna get any time to lay around  at Victrola.

As for me my handbooks are coming along…I’m hoping to have them polished up by midsummer.  That is if they make it through the gauntlet of Victrola’s many scrutinizing minds….ok maybe by Christmas