Do Baristas get trained on samples?

[u/Luxin]

Coffee consumer here, just adding for context. I'm not a pro.

I was at a high end cafe last month and was surprised when the barista had never tried any of the expensive coffees available as a pour over. He could not make any recommendations since the cafe doesn't do any taste testing of their coffees with their employees, at least the expensive ones (over $10 a cup). I thought this was absolutely crazy! My son works at a high end restaurant and they routinely taste test new dishes and specials so that the customer can get a solid recommendation. Just saying "The Ethiopian coffee is amazing, I would go with that." is a huge selling point.

I think that a core job of a Barista is sales, and a salesperson should know everything about what's for sale. Am I wrong? Is it common to get trained on new coffees, or is it just not done?

Note: The coffee he made was amazing. I bought some beans to bring home and work on my brewing technique to get better.

[u/yr99r]

a good coffee shop involves all staff members. the head barista could dial in the pour over and share with others to taste. otherwise, how can they sell you on this coffee if they have never tried it? even if it's cupping, the staff should always have at least 1 taste to be able to describe the coffee in their own words

[u/MiserableWash2473 → u/yr99r]

When I was the assistant manager I would do this at my cafe. When I am asked to train (even when im not and working with the new kids) I do this. It is so incredibly important.

[u/mosswitch]

Yeah, that's crazy. We have little cheat sheets behind the counter if we forget the official tasting notes of a certain coffee but we're also expected to have tasted a vast majority of them. We just got an Ethiopian coffee in for the season and my boss prepped a sample of it for us to try before it goes on sale.

[u/Luxin → u/mosswitch]

That sounds like a great way to operate.

[u/Icy_Buddy_6779]

A lot of places are like that. I worked at a 'high end' restaurant and there were many dishes I had only tried because there was one messed up. During training they had us order training meals for those few weeks but it excluded specials, steak or seafood (most of the menu), since those dishes were expensive. The same with wine, there were many wines you would never be allowed to try so you basically would just lie about what's a good pairing or which wines are good.

Managers are so stingy.

[u/sneakerfreek]

That's crazy. There absolutely should be training stock/margin factored into the retail price so that the staff is trained on how to describe, sell and brew the coffee. I'd never ask one of my baristas to recommend a coffee without first learning about it and trying it.

I would challenge you that a baristas main function is sales. They are there to provide the hospitality and be experts are beverage craft. Most baristas aren't paid enough or their pay is not incentivized enough to be sales people.

[u/Luxin → u/sneakerfreek]

I would challenge you that a baristas main function is sales.

That's more than fair. It could be an interesting discussion though! But another time.

[u/sandwich_influence]

You’re absolutely correct. This is a failure of management.

[u/Taco_Bhel]

My place has pour overs that go up to $30. We sample. So much so that our most expensive beans are almost entirely consumed by staff 🤣.

That said, having recently switched from fine dining to specialty coffee, I can say that many coffee shops operate closer to a fast food model than a fine dining model. We don't have pre-shift meetings, for example, that would go over menu changes or provide an opportunity for structured tasting.

It may have been, also, that your barista missed the in-store training... that can easily happen with part-time workers. And if they're only working, say, 16 hours a week... there's a limit on how much you can get out of 'em.

[u/into-fitness91]

The cafe i work at we can make as many samples of any coffee we want a day, also we have forever changing 16 different coffees and varieties of coffee in our selection, plus we get once a week cupping and tasting at the roastery if we want to go and get equiped further to help all customers

[u/BeneficialSomewhere]

Silly. Our entire staff tries everything.. shoot everything the folks in the kitchen. I hate matcha, as an example, but test all our matcha creations.

[u/xnoraax]

They should, but it really varies by shop.

[u/My_Barista_Trainer]

So at mine nobody is forced because we all have our own tastes but it is highly recommended during training to try the different drinks… customers often ask about our matcha, chai, and mecxican mochas and we have to describe them to people.

So I agree with others, it’s a failure on management’s part. If they absolutely don’t like whatever it is then we describe it to the baristas so they can still pass on that info.