Ken Fox wrote:OK, do you weigh between 300 and 600 lbs?

I'm 5'10" and weight <130 lbs, Doc. I also enjoy strolls in the park.

This is starting to look a bit too much like a contact add.

We'll ask Peter to send you a picture

ken

Psyd wrote:C'mon folks, these kinds of comparisons are not intended to be taken literally. Think about it a minute. When I compare espresso machines to trucks, I am certainly not suggesting that I can drive my espresso machine to work.

You mean like this or this?

Marshall wrote:My observation over the years is that people who are new to espresso making can learn a lot on line, but they can also pick up some bad habits in a blind-leading-the-blind fashion. I find it particularly frustrating when people who do not have access to first-rate coffee bars compare their home brew to the local swill and conclude they have little to learn from skilled professionals.

How do we solve this? Home espresso roadshows? Local gatherings? It might be hard to do this without a good coffee bar to act as a host. How do you bootstrap the home barista's, I think you have to start with the basics to get them in the ballpark, but at a certain point the mechanical technique becomes secondary to the art of espresso.

Maybe thinking about how you teach someone to blend espresso might express some of this. At some point you go beyond the rules and it becomes personal.

-Chris

yakster wrote: How do you bootstrap the home barista's, I think you have to start with the basics to get them in the ballpark, but at a certain point the mechanical technique becomes secondary to the art of espresso.

If you're an avid home barista, the pro's are not unavailable to you. Phoenix just had a 'sprodown that pretty much invited everyone, and asked for five bucks to play on the machine. The coffee was free, the beer was free the advice and the show were also both free.
I put two days into the first barista jam in AZ, and we had an entire afternoon/evening set aside for home machines and baristi.
I've spent a lot of time gawking over the counter at third wave shops around the country, and many hours sitting 'listening' to the champs here, and on other sites.
I've tasted some of the best that there is out there, and I can compare that to what is available here in Tucson. That little advantage that the crest of the wave have over the best of my local fare is a very narrow gap compared to the rest of what's available. I can keep up with them (lagging behind, probably, but still in the running) and would stand up to any barista in this town, and wipe the floor with everyone but perhaps the top three, maybe four shops her in Tucson. Does that mean that I paint better than Helen Keller? Yeah, but it also means that I'm pulling on a par with all but the best of the best.
And I think that none of us have suggested that I'd gotten to that skill level without the help of some of the local professionals. What I think has been said is that emulating *all* that they do, just because they are pros, isn't especially useful. Knowing why they do what they do, and emulating what they do only when it parallel's your requirements is a far more useful tool.
It isn't good just because pros do it. They could do it because it is far faster than what they would do if they had all the time that we do,and it could be a sacrifice.
It has also been said that there are a lot of pros that pull out-and-out swill. Getting paid to pull espressi doesn't guarantee, in any way shape or form, that it will be any good. As I said, other than a handful of notables, in this town I could change the world.
I'm thinking of adding 'hyperbole' to the vocabulary list. Perhaps if I weren't so guilty... ; >

Be cautious about assuming that your local market represents anything close to where the bar is for serious pros unless you live in PDX, Seattle and now maybe LA, NYC, SF or Chicago.

Whale wrote: I was only saying that these skilled professionals that I could learn from are far in between.

And this belief is based upon what?

GC7 wrote:I also fully agree that these skills are FAR MORE rigorous, difficult and more in need of long term training then barista skills.

Background:

I was a professional cook for more than ten years. I started as garde manger and worked my way up through line cook, saucier, sous to eventually being chef de cuisine. I worked at various places throughout the US and in Europe. I'm no Robuchon, but once upon a time this was not only my career but my life.

I was a professional barista for more than five years. I started off working the bar at a small (bad) indy shop and worked my way up through running a well known indy shop using Intelli coffee to eventually the GM, Retail at Stumptown and a regional rep for the Barista Guild.


So I guess what I'm saying is that, when it comes to comparisons between cooking and making coffee professionally (or commercially) -- I've got a pretty good perspective.


My Thoughts:

Much of the debate and comparisons comes from, to be blunt, complete ignorance about both subjects.

If you have not worked the line in a restaurant, honestly you have literally no idea what it's like. Believe me when I say that it is NOTHING like cooking at home (no matter how many courses you've taken at Sur la Table or whatever).
The same is true of being a serious barista at a top coffee business. The similarities with making espresso at home are superficial and frankly are confusingly similar - but with little true commonality.

Working as a professional cook is FAR more difficult than being a barista. But the difficulty is largely due to the working circumstances (and to a lesser degree how high the bar is set). The job of a line cook is one of the most physically and emotionally difficult experiences you can have. There are good reasons why substance abuse is such a problem among professional cooks. After the toughest day I've ever had working the bar as a barista, I was far less drained and wrecked than after an average busy shift working the line.

Now... all that being said, if I take the most difficult single dish that as a line cook I ever had to produce and compare the challenges of producing it consistently to the challenges of doing so with a machiatto (for example)... The machiatto is harder to master. Being able to produce a machiatto that is up to (high) professional standards every single time it is ordered, within the constraints of working a busy bar, is a legitimate challenge. Learning to produce a good lemon beurre blanc (as an example) on command on the line... that took me a day or so to master and the challenges are less the dish than the realities of working the line.

Now sure... the total repertoire required from a line cook is an order of magnitude beyond what you need to know as a barista.

But at the end of the day, the training needed to be a professional cook is less about the cooking skills and more about survival skills. A comparison between the two is as a result nearly meaningless.

Whale wrote: I was only saying that these skilled professionals that I could learn from are far in between.

malachi wrote:And this belief is based upon what?

It is not "belief" but an observation of the coffee places around my area. I did try a whole lot of them. Liked a lot of them, until I figured out how to make a better espresso than most. Now, there is very few places where I can say that the coffee that is served to me is better (to my taste) than what I make at home. And believe me that when it happens I look at and talk to the guy that made it. Machines, coffee, technique...

There are millions of good professional that I could learn from. There are just much more not-so-good out there (at least near my place).