Lever Espresso Machines
I first started working on lever machine eight months ago in a small coffee bar placed in the front of a men’s cloths store called Present on Shoreditch High Street, London. In Present we use a Victoria Arduino two group Athena Leva. I knew little of it when I started apart from the fact it made a lovely coffee but it was soon brought to my attention by Gwilym that the machine works very differently than other more conventional espresso machines. Since then I have continued to work for Gwilym at Present and other Prufrock ventures on a number of espresso machines, none of which I enjoyed as much as that lever machine.
Recently we have been lucky enough to get our hands on a Kees van der Westen machine called the Mirage. A three group machine placed in a quiet shop located in west London that has allowed me to spend more time understanding how lever machines work and why they make such lovely coffee. I became more informed as I started taking bits apart, it was so helpful to me so I decided to photograph the workings of the group head to share with anyone that finds themselves here…on my blog.
For those that were curious (baristas and otherwise), I hope this helps.
Enjoy!
-folkert
Anonymous
Focus on what it is in coffee that interests you the most. For me it was latte art at first but for you it could be brewed coffee, roasting, etc. This will be your gateway into coffe as it will be much easier for you to absorb information on an area you are truely interested in. I use to watch youtube videos for 2,3,4 hours a day and watch how different pours were done…I also used a Gaggia Classic at the time.
Like with anything, if you want to be good at something then put hours each day learning and doing what you love. This will make you shine above the rest.
Oh, Social networking is greatly overlooked by manly people. Get a twitter, a flickr and tumblr. Gain followers by giving regular quality content…Hopefully you can be more regular than I am :P
-David
Improving Service
I have been thinking a lot recently about service, sparked by blogs I have read but also when I started comparing the service I provide as a barista to the service found dining in some great restaurants.
Many baristas in our industry are guilty of providing some down right terrible service at times bought about by what I would best describe as snobbery. While it is a great thing to have product knowledge, this should not always get in the way of us providing what the customer wants.
My London Move
A few months ago I was living and working in Aberdeen, Scotland for a sub-par cafe serving what we called BBQ style roast coffee with pretty latte art in 18 oz cups to people who felt this “small” drink was far too expensive at £2.20 when they could get a coffee for £1 in their local diner. 30lb rule, 25 sec rule, 2oz rule with tampers fitted to grinders and a boss shouting at us for not having the cups flat on the surface while we poured latte art. Work was work and the passion only came into play when on my home espresso machine and scanning forums online.
Going from that to working in London has been quite a change
