Let’s talk about coffee again, but this time to tell you about the most horrifying things I’ve seen people do while making coffee at home or at the coffee shop!
Then again, there was no better time to address this topic.
Let’s start with the most common bar horrors!
1. Do not clean the equipment
And that includes everything from purging to cleaning the filter or steam wand, not forgetting, of course, the coffee grinder and cup washer.
Explaining it very quickly: when making a coffee, and I repeat, every single coffee, all the equipment must always be cleaned. Starting from running a little water from the machine between coffees, to wiping a cloth over the steam wand once you’ve finished whipping the milk, going from rinsing the filter, portafilter and the spouts from which the coffee comes out whenever needed.
Think about when you ask for a coffee at the café and maybe that is the 200th coffee of the day and that since the first coffee made the machine has never been rinsed. The filter and all the other parts that come in contact with the ground coffee will have embedded powder residue, now more than extracted, burned, rancid and hopefully nothing else!
And when it’s “good,” the machine is dirty just from the morning … but I’ve seen and seen again, in the last 8 years of working in the industry, baristas who didn’t clean the equipment even for months, that when they call the roaster, because obviously the machine is no longer working, the service person needs the chisel to pull the different pieces off and try somehow to peel off and clean them.
Think of these same baristas serving coffee to you!
To these statements of mine the classic barista response is “we don’t have time to clean for every coffee.” The point is exactly this: cleaning is not an optional thing to be done only if there is time, but it is mandatory, so you have to build it into your coffee-making routine, and with time this will come so automatically that there will be no difference in timing with or without cleaning.
How do I know? Because it is a path that we have also taken at our roasting plant, and we know from experience that it is more than doable.
Here are some photos to understand what I am talking about:
And I already know what you must be thinking — “but these are rare cases”. Instead, the vast majority of coffee shops work exactly this way–in the end it’s coffee, it even needs to be washed?!
2. Incorrect delivery “because then I make more.”
I have often heard from venue managers who purposely dispense coffee the wrong way to save money and/or speed up service.
For example: instead of using 7.5/8.5g of coffee, they use 6g so they can make more coffee with one kilo pack, or purposely keep the grind too wide to brew coffee in 10 seconds instead of 25, so they can make more espressos in the same serving time.
The cons? The bartender risks losing customers because they are not satisfied with the product.
3. “I’ve been in this business for 30 years.”
This is perhaps one of the statements that creeps me out the most, first of all because it is not necessarily the case that having worked 30 years is synonymous with professionalism. If for 30 years you were taught and always applied a wrong method, you could have worked even 60 years, but still wrong it remained.
Then because when they tell me then I look at the coffee preparation and realize that they still don’t even know how to fix the grind.
Also, in my opinion, this sentence is full of arrogance. Perhaps one of the most fun aspects of life is that there is always something new to learn. This is also the most challenging part, which is that if you do exactly the same job for 30 years without ever changing a comma, I personally would be bored. By adding or fixing a little bit every day, I feel like I’ve spent it well!
4. Milk whipped over and over again
In addition to the first point where we talked about cleaning the steam wand, which is often covered with months if not years of burnt and spoiled milk fouling, we also need to talk about overcooked milk.
In every unprofessional bar, all baristas use the same milk to re-mix it every time a new order comes in that requires it. Have you ever tried at home to heat milk, let it sit there for a while to cool, and then reheat it for several times? Here now taste it, what does it taste like? I guess nothing good!
So why is it done at the bar?
Besides a taste factor then there is also a health factor, as it becomes harmful to the stomach.
5. Dirty clothing
Finally among the things that most horrify me are the dirty uniforms. I will never get anything prepared by a bartender whose apron is more stained than a butcher’s!
We turn now to the horrors of the house
1. The dirty mocha that woe who washes it!
“If you wash the mocha you take away the coffee taste!”
First of all: so coffee has no taste in itself, it is the equipment that gives it taste?
Second thing: then don’t wash the pans otherwise you take away the taste of meat, don’t wash the pots otherwise the pasta won’t taste like anything, don’t wash the cup otherwise the milk tomorrow will taste like what?
2. Make a completely burnt coffee with mound etc. and call it intense!
Now I am not going to do a whole text on how to brew coffee properly with the mocha or other tools, because we have already done articles and videos about it.
People who persist in wanting to make the mound, or other similar mistakes, always give a plausible explanation: “so the coffee comes out more intense.”
The word intensity has never been used more incorrectly. Feeling the coffee more bitter is not synonymous with intensity, but with burnt, not synonymous with quality, but with over-extracted beverage.
So let’s try to understand what intensity means and attribute in the correct way.
Finally we repeat as a mantra:
When coffee is very bitter it means it is of low quality!
3. Espresso without coffee grinders, scales and other tools
This is the last point I would like to touch on today, namely those who feel like making espresso at home, but without any minimum preparation or the necessary equipment.
Don’t get me wrong, I am the first espresso lover and if I didn’t work in a roastery I would buy a home espresso machine right away. It is only right to want it and try to repeat the experience at home as well.
But espresso, though underrated, is the most difficult brewing method of all, both because of the amount of equipment it requires, the much higher cost compared to other tools, and the technique. Just mistake a comma in one of the many parameters and the espresso comes out badly.
So before you buy a machine, ask us or anyone else in the industry if they can advise you what equipment to buy and especially how to prepare it. Inform yourself by watching just a few videos on youtube or other social media.
Because very often people buy the machine, but then they do not know what dose of coffee should be put in, what grind to do, how to use it, and how to maintain it. The result? A really undrinkable coffee, which at this point could have been made with any other 20€ equipment instead of investing hundreds without getting a good result!
And what horrors have you seen?
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Coffee Lover
