How Long Does It Take To Train A Barista?

Making sure your staff are trained to use your espresso machine correctly is super important.

Correct training could be what makes your customers come to you rather than your competitor. But how long does it take to train a barista? In short; that depends. For instance, to pick numbers out of the air, if we said 10000 hours makes you a professional at something, it will take longer if you are practising for one hour a day, rather than eight. Let’s also look into some of the problems you may face if you don’t train, along with the benefits of training your staff. Ready? Let’s do this!

New Staff

When you employ new staff, they may not have any experience of using an espresso machine. Although you may need to spend more time training and keeping an eye on your new recruits, with no previous training, and therefore no bad habits, you can teach them your way.

Equally, new staff who do have previous experience will still need to be trained in the ways that you make coffee in your business. Although they have used an espresso machine before, the one they used may be different from the one you have. Rather importantly, training all staff, in the same way, will bring consistency to your business.

Part-Time Staff

In the hospitality industry, there is often a rapid turnover of part-time staff. For example, it’s very common for pubs, hotels and cafes to have seasonal workers to help out during the summer and Christmas periods. University students often help to fill these voids while they are home for the holidays. This seasonality to working can prove extremely beneficial to you and your business. On the flip side, If these extra pairs of hands have to make coffee, is it worth your time training them when you know they will be off again soon? The same can be asked if part-time workers assist on busy weekends too.

So How Long Will It Take?

The reason for the research above is to get down to the all-important question; how long will it take? Well, as mentioned earlier, this depends on how hands-on your staff are and how many coffees they have to make. Don’t panic however; we can help!

Top Tips

We know it isn’t always feasible to have all your staff trained at the same time. We also understand that it can be disheartening to train staff if they are leaving you soon, like seasonal staff as pre-mentioned. So, we recommend that key staff members are trained fully in barista skills which can then train and keep a watchful eye on the rest of the team. This way, no one is left out, and everyone knows how everything works; from the machine to how to make an awesome cappuccino.

Also, we know that it is less than ideal, but we would strongly suggest that new staff who haven’t had any coffee training don’t use your espresso machine at all. Even if it’s a busy Friday night and someone has ordered a coffee, the staff who have been trained need to fix the order, rather than giving it to the new guy. We recommend for the first few months that you and your key staff keep an eye on new staff. Teach them a little more each time they use the machine, starting at pouring espresso, then Americanos, then move towards drinks with milk. Making coffee really well is harder than it looks.

The last thing that a customer of yours may order is a coffee at the end of their meal. If this has been thrown together by an inexperienced member of your team and isn’t up to the standard you pride yourselves on, what will that customer think? It is the last thing they consumed before leaving. Will that badly made coffee leave a negative lasting impression?

Our Training

We offer free and on-going coffee training to all of our wholesale coffee customers. Coffee training helps to make sure that the drinks you and your staff make will stay consistent. Consistency is key, not only to your bottom line but for quality control too. If a member of staff makes an Americano in a small cup and charges £2.30, when the next charges the same, but in a larger cup, which is correct? Which, to the customer, looks like better value for money?

As mentioned, our coffee training is free and unlimited. We can come and train your staff as many times as needed; great if you have new staff starting or you require a refresher.

We can come to your business to train, or if you’d prefer, you can come to us here at Two Chimps Coffee HQ.

Let’s Break It Down

As we cover many different aspects, we find it easier to split our coffee training into four sections.

First off, we start with the basics. You should be able to grasp this basic training after one session. We start off by talking through the espresso machine and showing how it works. We also show what to look out for when making espresso; so you can be sure each espresso shot is perfect. Finally, we talk about how to clean your espresso machine. Cleaning your machine is very important. If you don’t keep on top of cleaning, problems can start to arise.

The second part covers checking your grind and how to dial in your grinder if tweaking is required. Following this, we will talk about what your espresso machine pouring too fast or too slow is doing to the quality and taste of your coffee and how to fix it.

We then move onto using milk. There’s a lot more to milk than just pouring some in after you’ve extracted your coffee. For instance, different drinks such as lattes, cappuccinos and flat whites require different types of milk. Mastering texturising milk can be done in as little as a few hours of intensive training.

Lastly, lets attack latte art. This is where using the milk; you create a pattern which sits on top of the coffee. This can take time to master; however, once you do, it is just like riding a bike. Latte art adds something special to your drinks too, it kinda shows you care about your customers. Successful latte art can take around 1000 pints of milk to master. Best buy a cow.

Not a wholesale coffee customer, but want to know all of the above? Our barista basics workshop and latte art course could be just what you are looking for.

Looking for a wholesale coffee supplier who offers free and unlimited training, awesome coffee and so much more?

Get in touch with us today and join the troop!

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