Got into a long discussion with the wife about coffee while we were waiting for lunch. It's one of those subjects I can go on and on about if given the opportunity (ranking up there with Transformers, movies, the artistic oeuvre of Shatner, etc). I was an on again off again coffee industry employee for about nine years. Throughout college, summers, and times when I simply needed more cash I would work as a barista. When you get right down to it, I probably have more work experience in terms of hours spent as a barista than in any of the other jobs I've held.
I just re-read that and became depressed. Give me a moment...
Sigh...
OK.
The main point of the long, scholarly voiced speech I made was to talk about standardization and what Starbucks has done to the industry. Let me be clear: I've never worked for them, I have had plenty of their products in every shape, form, location, etc, and generally I enjoy what they sell. Or, should I say, I used to.
Over the last five years Starbucks has rapidly followed the fast food industry methodology of dumbing down their products and processes so they can hire and train just about anyone. You have to do this when your business grows to thousands of locations. I get that. People expect a consistent product at every location, and the corporate powers that be will do everything to guarantee that. You make the equipment easier and easier, until it gets to the point where producing the product is nothing more than a step on a flow-chart, pressing the appropriate button at the appropriate time on a machine so simple that anyone from an airport kiosk employee with one week of experience up to a store manager with ten years of experience can produce almost identical results.
The only problem with that is, the results are vastly inferior to what their own standards used to be. Each store used to have its own espresso machine or varying ages, brands, and quality. They had their quirks and their strong points. Some were better than others, certainly. But you could get a sense of which store (and which person working that day) was going to give you a better or worse product.
I think back to my own time spent working as a barista. I loved the balance of science and art that making a good drink embodied. You had to understand and juggle the variables of temperature, timing, pressure, and grind coarseness with the art of completing something in a quick fashion while making it look and taste good in the process. If you really care about the product you're serving, each drink becomes an evaluation of how well you've evaluated those variables and executed.
The art side really comes in through learning to listen to the machine you're working with and getting a feel for when to adjust variables or ignore them completely. Having an ear for steaming milk that's ten to twenty degrees too hot...knowing a shot of espresso isn't good enough because it doesn't look right, or didn't take the right amount of time to make...understanding and adjusting for changes in air pressure and weather without having to stop everything you're doing and resetting and experimenting with the grind instead of making orders...pouring a drink so that it mixes instead of settles into layers...
It's a human process, and when it's done well you can absolutely taste the difference. Watch how little effort and understanding goes into that next latte you get at Starbucks. It's pushing one button for the espresso (grind and quantities are machine controlled) and then putting a steaming wand into a pitcher of milk and hitting another button. The machine pretty much does the rest.
Contrast that with the poor bastard who used to be me who's working with a finicky espresso machine from the 1970's that could just as easily electrocute you as produce great drinks. That's the one that takes skill, attention to detail, and a bit of artistry to handle. Sure, the potential for poor quality is there...but the potential for alchemical magic in a paper cup is there as well.
Standardization means limited opportunities for failure. But it also means almost no opportunity for anything above average to emerge from the system. I find myself more willing to take my chances with a small, local operation with the potential for greatness rather than continuing to be content with the same drink every time.
