CTG Gearhead Event: Barista Basics Series at The Crown

By Hylan Joseph

In October, we had the second in a series of community-led events at The Crown: Royal Coffee Lab & Tasting Room. The Crown is an open-source coffee education center, laboratory, and event space.  It’s a stunning state of the art coffee lab and education center.

The three-part series, Barista Basics, is focused on giving the barista a basic understanding of how to communicate with a tech, how a machine works, and how to do some basic troubleshooting. 

With the first event, we started with ten things a barista should look for on a machine, then lead into questions from 15 attendees all coming from local cafes in the Oakland and Bay Area. The event took about three hours and we closed by reviewing the top ten items a barista can look for to lower service costs.

With this second event, we hosted nearly 50 attendees and was streamed live via Instagram. This event focused on safety and took a deep dive into the different types of espresso machines, how each system works, and how water quality affects coffee machines.  

The final event will take place on January 9, 2020, and will explain the steps to becoming a tech, the importance of preventive maintenance programs, and a short basic review of the previous two classes.

This event series has been a great success and we have had an overwhelmingly positive response from our attendees. It’s great to connect with the local bay area barista community and new technicians.

Thanks to everyone who attended and who is planning on attending the third installment. The event was taught by Arno Holsuch, Chase Lemos, and myself. Thanks to Richard Sandlin and Even Gilman with Royal Coffee with their help organizing and setting up for the event.