Just recently, I completed a barista training course! I booked myself in for two tutorial: a 3 hour class on Sunday and an additional 2 hour class on Tuesday.
The first tutorial was all the basics of being a barista: all the aspects in order to make a coffee, as well as basic information about how to care for the machine and about basic food safety. The second class was where I learned how to make basic coffee art and more in-depth food safety.
Learning how to make coffee was actually much easier than I expected. I remember when I would watch people make coffee and feel kind of intimidated by how complicated everything looked. It just seemed so "sophisticated" from my point of view and made me consider, "maybe I won't be able to do it." Thankfully, that wasn't the case.
Overall, I performed pretty well in the tutorials. The tutor even told me that I was one of the "better" students that he's had in the past month(s), which was a major confidence booster for me. But, that's not to say that I didn't have any trouble in some aspects.
Of all the basics, frothing the milk was one of my biggest struggles. Sometimes I would froth it too much and on other times, too little. This struggle shouldn't be too hard to fix since all it takes is more experience, trial and error.
Doing coffee art was also a major struggle for me. I learned three types of common coffee art: etching, fudge art, and free-pour (this is also my order of easiest to hardest). What's kind of funny is that one of my main hobbies in my spare time is drawing, and seeing my performance in this tutorial was really doing me little justice.
In order to get better at coffee art, I will need to practice as much as I can. Obviously my coffee art won't look that good to begin with, which is why my tutor gave me a tip: practice on take-away cups where the art will get covered with a lid, anyway. And then, once I get better, I can move on to doing art on dine-in mugs.
I can more confidently go job hunting now that I've got my certificates, especially since I have no prior work experience as an adult. I hope I find a job soon - hopefully a coffee-making job.
