At a café in a salubrious part of town recently, I asked for my coffee to be taken back and made hot. It simply felt like it had been forgotten, picked up half an hour later, and served by accident.
“I’m sorry but the barista does not make it any hotter, it’s not good for the coffee.”
“What!? Are you telling me that the dreadlocked and pierced 20 year old twerp at the front counter is telling me what I want?”
“Well, he is a qualified barista.”
I have run into the above fiasco with slightly varying script, always implying my own lack of self awareness, on other occasions as well.
And I’ve witnessed the growing ersatz importance of this no-skill, demonstrated in other ways. I recently drove past a pub that was re-opening in, wait for it… Redfern, that has clearly misunderstood what it should be doing. It said proudly on the sign out the front “Opening Soon Under New Management. Qualified Barista On Site.” In a pub in Scumbagsville, inner city Sydney, you do not need a coffee. You certainly do not need it served to you by some semi-employed upstart, with the unmitigated hide to think that’s something you need to get a qualification in.
I’ve even seen a twit with an exploded diagram of a coffee steamer tattooed on his arm. Well congratulations super genius, you must be very proud. You have learnt how to force high pressure hot water through granulated beans – your Nobel awaits. Barista is pronounced in a way that is not supposed to be confused with Barrister. Someone should mention this.
Oh, and if you think I’m talking out of my hat, I learnt to make good coffee by watching the girl at the first café I ever worked in, do it for 3 minutes and off I went. Some things just don’t need to be explained.
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