7 Reasons To Ditch Your Barista

While your office coffee service doesn’t exactly determine business profitability, it plays a big role in overall environment. Don’t you want a work atmosphere filled with positive, upbeat energy? Currently, you’re probably stopping by a highly trafficked coffee house, complete with a wild assortment of gourmet coffee, but your favorite java pit stop currently houses a nasty barista, complete with zero knowledge of gourmet coffee and a bad eye-rolling habit.

You want mornings at the office to start on a positive note. You want your employee’s to settle in and begin their work with a nice cup of coffee. If you have a grumpy barista handling your employees caffeine needs, the morning, and perhaps the coffee, always start on a sour note.

If you’ve encountered the following problems with your offsite barista, it might be time to say goodbye to your beloved, yet incompetent barista and start looking into an in-house coffee service to ensure maximum employee satisfaction.

Bad Attitude

You’re barista should be pleasant. People are cranky in the morning— the last thing they want is to be greeted with another cranky attitude.  People are also very specific when it comes to their coffee. If you’re barista has a poor attitude, she most likely makes a poor cup of coffee. Don’t make your employees suffer through a miserable morning and a crummy cup of coffee.

Bad Extraction

This is a big mistake baristas make when it comes to making good gourmet coffee. After grinding, a 30ml shot should come out in around 25-30 seconds, creating a mouth-watering aroma. Coffee that comes out too fast or too slow affects the strength and flavor.

Milk/Coffee Burning

There’s nothing quite like the taste of charred coffee or burnt milk. Over-heated milk, or milk that’s heated too quickly, gives coffee a burnt flavor. Coffee pots left behind on the burner also make for some scorched flavoring. Ideally, milk should be heated to around 60-65 degrees, and coffee typically has a 30-minute burner life. If your barista is unfamiliar with these golden coffee rules, your gourmet coffee won’t taste so gourmet.

Poor Technique

It doesn’t take two seconds to make good coffee, but it also doesn’t take 20 minutes. Baristas have a habit of rushing the job or completely forgetting about your brew. You might pay for a double latte with a shot of mocha, but you might receive a watered down mess because the barista is too busy chatting with co-workers to remember your beverage.

Weak Coffee

No one likes weak coffee. One of the surest paths to weak coffee is adding too much milk or water. If your barista isn’t a gourmet coffee expert, they are probably calculating ingredients incorrectly. Realistically, “barista” probably isn’t their main career goal, so it’s highly likely that your barista doesn’t specifically measure out the liquid portions that make a strong cup of coffee.

Unclean Machines

An unkempt coffee machine affects coffee flavor, creating a bitter or unpleasant taste. If your barista doesn’t clean the coffee supplies and equipment regularly, there is most likely a nasty build up of oil hiding in the machine’s interior crevices. A busy cafe should clean and flush their filters at least once a day.

Stale Coffee Beans

Most java-drinkers know when their coffee was made with stale beans—it tastes worse than dirty dishwater. If your barista is using stale beans, your going to have some horrible tasting coffee. Fresh beans are vital to a good brew. You want to make sure beans are kept in an airtight container, protecting them from oxygen exposure.

Sometimes, two people just can’t make it work. If your barista is constantly causing problems with customer service and coffee quality, you are better off implementing a coffee service sans human. Often times, an actual person leaves more room for error than a machine. So do the right thing, be the bigger person and break it off with your barista.

Ready to learn more about water’s power over quality gourmet coffee? Call 215-943-5700 or click on the link below to discover how to amp up your employees.