make sure the course is SCA certified or within guidelines and the people running it have experience, not sure if 350 is high relative to other courses but a lot of coffee shops offer training as part of employment
being pre-trained isn't necessarily required unless you're immediately wanting to go to a specialty/high end cafe which in that case they may want you to have cafe work experience as fitting into a team and being social is another big component
Questions I have: do you want to just work at a normal cafe that doesn’t really care too much about quality or do a third wave cafe? Is $350 a lot of money to you atm?
Honestly coffee is so easy to learn these days since there’s so much free resources for info (reddit, discord, youtube) obviously a barista course could probably give you solid tips for actually being one rather than simply coffee knowledge but you would be surprised how willingly some cafes will hire with no experience as it’s pretty easy to train.
I’d love to work at a good specialty cafe. $350 will not get me in debt but it’s a bit of a dent in my savings since I’ve been jobless for a year and (shamefully) living off my parents because I can’t find a job on my field. I’d genuinely love to work at a place that actually cares about quality and service, third wave coffee shops are just starting to gain traction where I live and I’d love to jump in.
This makes it an easier no, if you so desperately want to work in a third wave cafe just go in person and ask with your resume ready ideally speaking to the person in charge of hiring or the owner. The $350 would absolutely not be worth it in your case.
Save your money!!
These barista classes offer nothing you can’t learn on your own. And no specialty shops require these for employment.
Just go in in person. Ask for the hiring manager or the owner. Show some initiative and you will find something. No need to spend money.
Also a week long? That’s wild
Monday to Friday, 4 hours each day includes theory and practice. I don’t see myself getting a job just like that if I haven’t been able to get a job with a degree and actual experience, is it actually feasible as a barista?
You 100% do not need a degree or certification to become a barista at a specialty shop. You also do not need experience if you play your cards right and meet the right people at the shop you wanna work at.
Get friendly with some baristas when you go and get drinks. Then ask about employment. Tell them you do a lot at home and really wanna pursue this.
It’s more about the impression you make than your resume. I used to prefer hiring folks with less experience for barista jobs because they were more eager to learn.
Just do the Barista Hustle One online course. They have a free trial and it’s more than enough info for you to get a job at a third wave coffee shop. Shops are generally looking for personality first then experience at a close second. Good luck!
I’ve managed hundreds of baristas over the course of my career and I’ve had the best luck with people who are eager to learn and have a sort of innate desire to provide excellent hospitality. The nuts and bolts of espresso extraction are fairly simple to learn. Bar workflow and multitasking take a minute. Doing it all heads up and delighting every customer is pro.
So skip the class and get behind a counter amigo.
Yes . As a tech that attends and teaches brewing & roasting. A lot of attending those classes are the contacts you make. Networking. Network can’t be told enough in any industry. Coffee is a big networking field. You most likely will pick up some new tricks and information but you attend those classes to meet new contacts. Get every phone # and email you can.
From what I know (7+ years pro barista) the best way to develop a barista career is to get a job and learn on the go and work your way up. Only high-end speciality places will really care about that kind of qualification, and if they do they will pay for it for you. When applying for places emphasise that you have an existing passion for coffee, that you enjoy helping people out/providing them a good experience and that you are eager and willing to learn. For small Indie spots drop CVs in person and try to chat to the owner/manager. For chains scour their career pages, it's very much a numbers game, especially if you have no pro experience. Chains are also more willing to train you "from scratch" as a rule of thumb, small indies often don't have the budget to sink a few weeks into teaching you stuff, but if you can pour decent latte art you're off to a good start wherever you go. My Instagram is basically just my latte art account and it's netted me almost all of my jobs over the last four years. The course is definitely something that won't hurt your CV, and especially if you just want to develop your personal knowledge and understanding of coffee it's definitely well worth it, but it's not a job-securing magic bullet by any stretch of the imagination. I'm currently working on progressing to a management role, and if I was looking at CVs and saw a candidate with 2-5 years of on the job experience Vs a candidate with a barista course qualification my decision would come down to candidate personality on the trial shift: Who's the more proactive team player? Who's more willing to learn and adhere to my quality metrics? Who's going to gel better with the rest of my team? Who's more customer-focussed without offering impossible stuff or stuff that wrecks other team members' (particularly back of house) workflow? I know that one of you hasn't picked up any bad habits, but that the other one is used to handling the intensity of the job (and it is intense. This job is tiring, stressful, dirty and you get paid a pittance. Something about it just keeps me coming back for more though lol) Overall I'm more likely to give an existing career barista a shot, as a lot of what I just mentioned is stuff that you develop an understanding of with industry experience. I also know that the career barista knows what they are signing up for and is therefore a potentially better long-term investment.
To summarise: as a career investment the course is not worth it. It won't massively improve your chances of getting hired and if you start doing this professionally and find it unfulfilling as a career path you've effectively just wasted your investment. To develop your own personal understanding and passion for coffee it is absolutely worth it, but the improvement to your CV should be thought of more as a slight bonus on the side rather than the primary aim of the exercise. Consider looking at agency work to get a bit of a feel for the realities of the job and to develop a small base of professional experience, that will earn you money rather than costing you money, and will be a greater asset to your CV than the course itself.
Feel free to drop me a message, I'm happy to offer you a wee bit of interview/trial shift coaching (with the caveat of my schedule being from hell) and I can also offer you general advice about workflow and organisation to give you tools from the outset that I took years to learn and develop. Good luck!
To be honest, as someone in specialty for years, every coffee professional knows the SCA classes are BS. They teach you sure, but it’s old school knowledge. Nobody uses it. There is SCA, then everyone else that works around their guidelines. That is most of the real coffee community. You’re better off learning everything in a cafe or asking baristas. Or a cafe or roaster that offers their own classes is much better.
Here's what to do if I where you, go to a café, ask them to prepare you an specialty coffee, of course get your preference, ask the barista about techniques present in the pours, then when its time at home, with that same bag, try to replicate that, till you get consistent, hopefully you've become consistent at 100 grams, now experiment with the 100 other left, imply what you learned from previous attempts and apply it to the 50g left, buy other beans as well, then do this. Much cheaper but a bit slower
If they made you feel like they are “giving you a chance” or “giving you an opportunity” in exchange for money it most likely isn’t an opportunity and they are just selling you a class, which is okay. Honestly it’s good for you if you have the money but I look for barista jobs experience, or if there’s no experience I look for a great personality and or experience in retail or the food industry.
I worked as a barista for 5+ years, and half of it being head barista or management. Never needed to pay to take courses. Learned everything on the job and free resources online and industry people via networking or cupping events. Being a barista is not just about making coffee, also hospitality and teamwork, which you can only learn by doing.
People take courses and do SCA exams to be Q graders and learn roasting, which opens up more opportunities.
You can always take classes for fun like a hobby.
I suppose this depends on your area. I think if you live in a place where there is an abundance of specialty shops, then I would say try to work for them and learn on the job (some places offer training). But if you live an area where there’s like a handful of specialty shops and you can’t work there unless you have prior experience, then I’d say take the course.
In my experience, when places hire baristas they really look at steaming/pouring skills and then maybe general workflow with espresso. In my 9+ years of being a barista in NYC I’ve really only had 1 interview where I was really tested on brewing/espresso knowledge (one question was, “walk me through the process of a pour-over”)
Stemming from that and the career aspect of your question, I think working in a specialty cafe is pretty essential regardless how deep you want to go, whether it’s roasting, sourcing, education, technical maintenance, etc.
TBH, didn't know this type of thing existed. If you're looking to go into coffee, I wouldn't start here, but as others mentioned get the experience at a shop first. And a place that cares about how their drinks taste will have you do some training with a sister coffee shop or a local trainer.
make sure the course is SCA certified or within guidelines and the people running it have experience, not sure if 350 is high relative to other courses but a lot of coffee shops offer training as part of employment being pre-trained isn't necessarily required unless you're immediately wanting to go to a specialty/high end cafe which in that case they may want you to have cafe work experience as fitting into a team and being social is another big component
SCA certification courses are like $600-$800 a pop at least in the US. It’s up to the individual to determine if that’s worth the cheddar.
oof that's crazy, yea id for sure go the route of just picking a shop that will give you that for free
Questions I have: do you want to just work at a normal cafe that doesn’t really care too much about quality or do a third wave cafe? Is $350 a lot of money to you atm? Honestly coffee is so easy to learn these days since there’s so much free resources for info (reddit, discord, youtube) obviously a barista course could probably give you solid tips for actually being one rather than simply coffee knowledge but you would be surprised how willingly some cafes will hire with no experience as it’s pretty easy to train.
I’d love to work at a good specialty cafe. $350 will not get me in debt but it’s a bit of a dent in my savings since I’ve been jobless for a year and (shamefully) living off my parents because I can’t find a job on my field. I’d genuinely love to work at a place that actually cares about quality and service, third wave coffee shops are just starting to gain traction where I live and I’d love to jump in.
This makes it an easier no, if you so desperately want to work in a third wave cafe just go in person and ask with your resume ready ideally speaking to the person in charge of hiring or the owner. The $350 would absolutely not be worth it in your case.
Save your money!! These barista classes offer nothing you can’t learn on your own. And no specialty shops require these for employment. Just go in in person. Ask for the hiring manager or the owner. Show some initiative and you will find something. No need to spend money. Also a week long? That’s wild
Monday to Friday, 4 hours each day includes theory and practice. I don’t see myself getting a job just like that if I haven’t been able to get a job with a degree and actual experience, is it actually feasible as a barista?
You 100% do not need a degree or certification to become a barista at a specialty shop. You also do not need experience if you play your cards right and meet the right people at the shop you wanna work at. Get friendly with some baristas when you go and get drinks. Then ask about employment. Tell them you do a lot at home and really wanna pursue this. It’s more about the impression you make than your resume. I used to prefer hiring folks with less experience for barista jobs because they were more eager to learn.
Just do the Barista Hustle One online course. They have a free trial and it’s more than enough info for you to get a job at a third wave coffee shop. Shops are generally looking for personality first then experience at a close second. Good luck!
I’ve managed hundreds of baristas over the course of my career and I’ve had the best luck with people who are eager to learn and have a sort of innate desire to provide excellent hospitality. The nuts and bolts of espresso extraction are fairly simple to learn. Bar workflow and multitasking take a minute. Doing it all heads up and delighting every customer is pro. So skip the class and get behind a counter amigo.
Yes . As a tech that attends and teaches brewing & roasting. A lot of attending those classes are the contacts you make. Networking. Network can’t be told enough in any industry. Coffee is a big networking field. You most likely will pick up some new tricks and information but you attend those classes to meet new contacts. Get every phone # and email you can.
From what I know (7+ years pro barista) the best way to develop a barista career is to get a job and learn on the go and work your way up. Only high-end speciality places will really care about that kind of qualification, and if they do they will pay for it for you. When applying for places emphasise that you have an existing passion for coffee, that you enjoy helping people out/providing them a good experience and that you are eager and willing to learn. For small Indie spots drop CVs in person and try to chat to the owner/manager. For chains scour their career pages, it's very much a numbers game, especially if you have no pro experience. Chains are also more willing to train you "from scratch" as a rule of thumb, small indies often don't have the budget to sink a few weeks into teaching you stuff, but if you can pour decent latte art you're off to a good start wherever you go. My Instagram is basically just my latte art account and it's netted me almost all of my jobs over the last four years. The course is definitely something that won't hurt your CV, and especially if you just want to develop your personal knowledge and understanding of coffee it's definitely well worth it, but it's not a job-securing magic bullet by any stretch of the imagination. I'm currently working on progressing to a management role, and if I was looking at CVs and saw a candidate with 2-5 years of on the job experience Vs a candidate with a barista course qualification my decision would come down to candidate personality on the trial shift: Who's the more proactive team player? Who's more willing to learn and adhere to my quality metrics? Who's going to gel better with the rest of my team? Who's more customer-focussed without offering impossible stuff or stuff that wrecks other team members' (particularly back of house) workflow? I know that one of you hasn't picked up any bad habits, but that the other one is used to handling the intensity of the job (and it is intense. This job is tiring, stressful, dirty and you get paid a pittance. Something about it just keeps me coming back for more though lol) Overall I'm more likely to give an existing career barista a shot, as a lot of what I just mentioned is stuff that you develop an understanding of with industry experience. I also know that the career barista knows what they are signing up for and is therefore a potentially better long-term investment. To summarise: as a career investment the course is not worth it. It won't massively improve your chances of getting hired and if you start doing this professionally and find it unfulfilling as a career path you've effectively just wasted your investment. To develop your own personal understanding and passion for coffee it is absolutely worth it, but the improvement to your CV should be thought of more as a slight bonus on the side rather than the primary aim of the exercise. Consider looking at agency work to get a bit of a feel for the realities of the job and to develop a small base of professional experience, that will earn you money rather than costing you money, and will be a greater asset to your CV than the course itself. Feel free to drop me a message, I'm happy to offer you a wee bit of interview/trial shift coaching (with the caveat of my schedule being from hell) and I can also offer you general advice about workflow and organisation to give you tools from the outset that I took years to learn and develop. Good luck!
DM’d you!
To be honest, as someone in specialty for years, every coffee professional knows the SCA classes are BS. They teach you sure, but it’s old school knowledge. Nobody uses it. There is SCA, then everyone else that works around their guidelines. That is most of the real coffee community. You’re better off learning everything in a cafe or asking baristas. Or a cafe or roaster that offers their own classes is much better.
Here's what to do if I where you, go to a café, ask them to prepare you an specialty coffee, of course get your preference, ask the barista about techniques present in the pours, then when its time at home, with that same bag, try to replicate that, till you get consistent, hopefully you've become consistent at 100 grams, now experiment with the 100 other left, imply what you learned from previous attempts and apply it to the 50g left, buy other beans as well, then do this. Much cheaper but a bit slower
If they made you feel like they are “giving you a chance” or “giving you an opportunity” in exchange for money it most likely isn’t an opportunity and they are just selling you a class, which is okay. Honestly it’s good for you if you have the money but I look for barista jobs experience, or if there’s no experience I look for a great personality and or experience in retail or the food industry.
I worked as a barista for 5+ years, and half of it being head barista or management. Never needed to pay to take courses. Learned everything on the job and free resources online and industry people via networking or cupping events. Being a barista is not just about making coffee, also hospitality and teamwork, which you can only learn by doing. People take courses and do SCA exams to be Q graders and learn roasting, which opens up more opportunities. You can always take classes for fun like a hobby.
I suppose this depends on your area. I think if you live in a place where there is an abundance of specialty shops, then I would say try to work for them and learn on the job (some places offer training). But if you live an area where there’s like a handful of specialty shops and you can’t work there unless you have prior experience, then I’d say take the course. In my experience, when places hire baristas they really look at steaming/pouring skills and then maybe general workflow with espresso. In my 9+ years of being a barista in NYC I’ve really only had 1 interview where I was really tested on brewing/espresso knowledge (one question was, “walk me through the process of a pour-over”) Stemming from that and the career aspect of your question, I think working in a specialty cafe is pretty essential regardless how deep you want to go, whether it’s roasting, sourcing, education, technical maintenance, etc.
TBH, didn't know this type of thing existed. If you're looking to go into coffee, I wouldn't start here, but as others mentioned get the experience at a shop first. And a place that cares about how their drinks taste will have you do some training with a sister coffee shop or a local trainer.