First off, I’d like to ask a certain very large coffee empire to not sue me for using a phrase that is probably trademarked. I simply couldn’t find a better title to fit the theme and since work is inspiring me to write this in the first place, work shall provide the title as well. Please note that this is not a comprehensive guide to working at a coffee shop but it does have a lot of the basics that a lot of people don’t always understand; in fact, a lot of this is comprised of things that I find myself explaining to customers on a fairly regular basis.

You may not know it but there are several different kinds of plain old brewed coffee. Your most common is what’s referred to as a medium roast. This is the coffee that, prior to the development of more specialty coffees, you would find in the average person’s home – think Maxwell House’s or Folger’s regular blend. (If you watch Glee, think Blaine Anderson and his medium drip coffee order.) They’re exactly as the name implies: right in the middle. If someone simply asks for a coffee without specifying a brew, this is what you’ll give them. It’s really that simple. The medium roast is the water of the coffee house.

The Espresso Shot

The second most common in a coffee house would be espresso for the fact that it’s used in – gasp – every espresso based drink you will turn out. Espresso is a dark, rich coffee. It is pulled in shots only in a coffee house setting, though I’d imagine there’s at least one person that brews it by the batch in their own home. Good shots have a distinct taste and are pulled at about 180 degrees Farhenheit. Good shots also have a very distinct look when pulled into a clear shot glass. There are three parts: the heart, the body, and the crema. The heart is the bottom layer, it’s slightly lighter and sits on the bottom of the shot glass. The body is the next part. This is the majority of your shot. It’s a dark brown, taking up 2/3 to ¾ of the shot. The last part is the crema. It’s thin, only about a quarter of an inch, maximum, and it’s a light, creamy brown. You really can’t miss it if you look at a properly pulled shot.

However, shots “die” if they sit too long and they have a bitter flavor if they die or take too long or too short of a time to pull. When a shot begins to die, you can see the layers mixing together. The heart and the body mix first, followed by the crema. It’s sort of intriguing to watch, but it’s not something you want to see. A proper shot, on the machines that we use at work, pulls anywhere between 17 and 23 seconds. While this varies from machine to machine, they won’t take much longer or much shorter. On shots that pull too quickly, the heart and body are rarely distinguishable and the crema is too thin or altogether nonexistent. Shots that pull too long are often ok to begin with but begin to die before the crema is released or, depending on just how long they’re taking, before the body has even finished pulling. One final note on espresso shots is that you can order them ristretto, which means that the heart and body will pull, but the machine will not release the crema. This makes the shot a little sweeter for whatever reason.

The Blonde and Bold Roasts

The blonde and bold roasts are regular old brewed coffee, which means that they’re in the same family as the medium roast. However, they are roasted for different amounts of time which affects both the flavor and the caffeine content.

A blonde roast is roasted for a shorter amount of time. It has a lighter flavor and higher caffeine content than the medium roast, but only slightly. Another noteable difference is that the weight of these beans are markedly lighter. This means, when you go to grind blonde beans, you will almost definitely use a smaller scoop to get the proper weight of beans.

A bold roast, on the other hand, goes the opposite way. It is roasted longer, resulting in a stronger flavor and slightly lower caffeine content. There is no real difference in the weight of these beans versus medium roast beans and you’ll most likely use the same scoop to measure out medium and bold beans when you grind them.

Brewing Techniques

There are also several different ways to brew regular old coffee. The most common way is with a drip machine. You put a filter in the basket, put your freshly ground coffee beans in the filter (you’ll definitely grind your coffee fresh as it keeps longer as whole bean than grounds), put it in the machine and press brew. It’s pretty simple.

Another way to brew coffee is to do what’s called a French press. Basically, you put hot water and grounds in a special pot and let it steep for five minutes. Then, on the lid, you press down on a little rod thing and it presses all the grounds to the bottom, leaving just coffee on the top. The grounds that you use for a French press are courser than those that you use for a drip. If the grounds are too fine, you run the risk of breaking your French press or simply ending up with grounds in your coffee and that’s simply really gross. French press is what we use at work when we’re doing a coffee tasting.

The final way that I’ll outline is a pourover. The grounds that you’ll use for this are finer than for a drip. It’s really similar to a drip but you’re basically brewing it by the cup. You put the grounds in a cone shaped filter and pour hot water over it. It’s really easy but it’s also sort of slow and annoying. The store that I work at doesn’t brew all four kinds of coffee all day. From open until noon, we brew a blonde, a medium, a bold, and a decaf medium. From noon until 5pm, we brew a medium and a bold. From 5pm to close, we brew just a medium roast. This is because we don’t sell as much of each blend after those times and we throw a lot of it away. When someone requests a brew that we don’t have on tap at the moment, we can offer to do a pourover. Because it takes a few minutes extra, some people don’t want it and some people think that it has a different taste and don’t like it.

While there are other ways to brew coffee, you probably won’t use any of them while working so I won’t include those.

Types of Drinks

Espresso Based Drinks

These drinks, as the name may imply, have shots of espresso in them. Drinks that fall into this category are lattes, macchiatos, Americanos, cappuccinos, and, of course, shots of espresso. I’ll briefly go over the recipes for these drinks.

For a latte, you put pumps of syrup (if flavored), then shots of espresso, followed by steamed milk, and a thin layer of foam.

Macchiatos are similar to lattes but the shots are put in last rather than first or second. Macchiato literally means “marked milk” which is a reference to the brown mark on the foam from when the shots go through it.

Americanos are the simplest to make, aside from simply shots. You pull shots and then fill it up with hot water.

Cappuccinos are literally the exact same as lattes except it’s half milk and half foam rather than just a thin layer of foam. Not even going to lie: cappuccinos are a and a half to make. They’re hard and you will not get it right on your first, second, or even tenth try. Cappuccinos are lighter than lattes as they have more foam in them. People that regularly order cappuccinos can be incredibly picky about the weight of their drink and they’ll ask you to remake them if they’re too heavy or too light.

Espresso shots are simple. Pull the number of shots the customer would like. An espresso macchiato is shots of espresso with foam on top and espresso con panna is shots with whipped cream.

All of the above can be made into iced drinks as well. In order to make them iced, you simply put in cold milk instead of steamed milk and ice. Iced cappuccinos, however, do still have the half milk, half foam aspect and I’m honestly not 100% sure how to make one because no one has ever ordered one while I was working.

Frappes

First off: fun fact, the name Frappuccino is copyrighted or trademarked (I never remember which) by Starbucks, so unless your character works at a Starbucks, they will refer to them as frappes. Customers use the terms interchangeably and workers, naturally, don’t correct them.

Coffee based frappes get frap roast, whole milk, ice, flavor syrups, and a base syrup. They’re then blended before being topped with whipped cream and any other toppings. Non-coffee based frappes are exactly the same but they get a different base syrup and no frap roast. Frappes are one of those things that you either seem to like making or hate making and the people at my store seem to lean towards hating making them.

Non-Coffee Drinks

There are a lot of drinks that don’t have any coffee in them at all. Hot chocolate, hot tea, iced tea, tea lattes, and steamers all fall into this category.

Hot and iced teas as well as hot chocolate are really straightforward so I won’t bother explaining those. Tea lattes and steamers are a little unusual, maybe, so I’ll explain those. Tea lattes are actually pretty easy as well. They’re half hot tea, half steamed milk with a layer of foam. Steamers are basically lattes without the shots of espresso.

Tasks

Opening

Naturally, when you’re working, there are various things that you are required to do. Opening shift requires, in my opinion, less work than closing but you’re also busier in the morning than at night. In the end it works out to be about even, just for different reasons. When opening, you have to do what’s referred to at my store as production. Production involves making mocha sauce, brewing teas for iced teas and coffee for iced coffee, and making frap roast. The person on production generally is in charge of making sure that all the roasts of coffee are brewed and ready to go when the store opens as well as turning on the oven and the espresso machines. Another opener is in charge of the pastry case – traying up pastries, putting tags on them, marking what day they need to be marked out by FDA standards. Personally, I prefer opening to closing, even if it means that you have to be at work at 4:45am. It also seems that a lot of the other people I work with prefer to open. Some people enjoy closing but it seems more enjoy opening tasks. Generally right after the store opens, someone has to put out a half and half and fill sanitzer buckets. The sanitizer buckets are a water and cleaner mixture with wash rags that are used to wipe down surfaces through out the day – trust me, everything gets dirty incredibly quickly.

Closing

Closing tasks require a lot more cleaning and take a lot longer than opening tasks. When closing, you have to wash everything; stock cups, sleeves, straws, napkins, condiments, syrups, dry ingredients for frappes, lids, everything; mark out pastries, sandwiches, and anything else that might be past date; clean and stock bathrooms; sweep and mop the café, back of house, and behind the bar; collect tips; count milks in back of house; and record fridge and freezer temperatures. I think that’s everything. If I think of something I skipped next time I close, I’ll add it in. It doesn’t necessarily seem like a ton of things to do but they’re all incredibly time consuming tasks.

FDA Required

Throughout the day, there are things that need to be done to keep up with FDA standard. Half and half, nonfat, and whole milk carafes need to be changed every two hours so the milk doesn’t go bad. Sanitizer also has to be changed every two hours to keep it from becoming too diluted with milk, soy, and extra water that invariably ends up in it. Milk steaming pitchers and blenders must be sanitized every four hours to keep them clean. Pastries in the case have to be marked for what day they go out. Most pastries are good for two days in the case. I think that’s everything for FDA required tasks.

The End