Latte art or foam art is what happens when your skilled barista makes a picture or design out of the steamed milk that’s put in your coffee.
Here’s a vid of the art form in action.
If the artiste in you is aching to learn how it’s done, you can go to barista school. The American Barista and Coffee School (http://coffeeschool.org) will be happy to teach you everything you need to know about running a specialty coffee shop to become a premier barista. It is situated in Oregon, USA.
For Canadians who want to devote their lives to the art and artistry of coffee, the Canadian Barista & Coffee Academy (http://www.canadianbaristaacademy.com) offers workshops in the major cities across Canada. It also organizes the Canadian Barista Championships.
Q: What is the prettiest picture or design you’ve ever had in your latte?
Pouring coffee may seem like a pretty low-end job, something you do while you go to school or wait to win the lotto, but oh contraire, mon frère. Being a barista is a serious business. So serious, in fact, that there is an annual championship competition to see who is the king (or queen) of coffee.
The reasons for holding this contest is, according to the WBC:
To promote the growth, excellence & recognition in the Barista profession.
To grow the Barista’s knowledge of and expertise in, the preparation and serving of specialty, espresso coffee through competitions.
To promote the knowledge and consumption of specialty coffee to the consumer through the Barista.
To become globally recognized as the premier World Barista Event in the coffee “calendar.”
To compete, a barista must make 4 espressos, 4 cappuccinos and 4 signature drinks that the individual barista has created. The judging is based on taste, creativity, cleanliness and presentation.
The World Barista Champion for 2008 is Stephen Morrissey from Dublin, Ireland. Mr. Morrissey received, aside from the honour of winning the competition, a La Marzocco GS/3 espresso machine and a Compak K-10 WBC espresso grinder.
Vancouver’s own, Michael Yung of Caffe Artigiano and the 2007 Canadian Barista Champion placed 5th.
The next Championship is going to be held in Atlanta Georgia in April 2009 during the 21st Annual Specialty Coffee Association of America’sSymposium and Exposition.
When coffee first arrived in the mid-1660’s in London, it wasn’t a great business to get involved in unlike today’s coffee market, judging from the plethora of thriving cafes. So coffeehouse owners had to develop sideline businesses. In the previous two articles, I touched on auctions (art and books) and newspapers as lucrative sidelines.
But these were far from the only ways in which coffeehouse owners made money. There were hosting debating societies like the Rota, or selling tickets to attend concerts, author readings and other types of gatherings which were held at the coffeehouse. Some coffeehouses also acted as post offices where people could send and receive mail, though the postal service in those days was quite a hap-hazard affair.
Perhaps the most famous business to develop out of a coffeehouse is the international insurer, Lloyd’s of London. Located near the docks in London, Edward Lloyd not only sold coffee but held ships’ auctions, sold insurance and published financial news, under the title Lloyd’s News. Eventually, Lloyd’s Coffeehouse allowed insurance merchants to work out of the coffeehouse for an annual subscription (Brian Cowan, The Social Life of Coffee).
But as with any endeavour, there is the unsavory underbelly which is usually far more interesting than the legal, upright side of business. The coffeehouse business was no exception. Auction not only included books and art but also slaves. Gambling (dicing, cards, etc.) proved to be a good moneymaker so long as the authorities didn’t get wind of it. The oldest profession, prostitution, found a good home in some of the more seedy establishments, like Tom King’s Coffeehouse.
Moll King, the owner and proprietor of King’s Coffeehouse after Tom died, was brought up on charges of running a bagnio or disorderly house but her defense was that there were no beds in the place (Markman Ellis, The Coffee-house). Ah, the saving-grace of loopholes. King’s Coffeehouse was so well-known for selling something other than coffee that author Henry Fielding immortalized the place in his Covent Garden Tragedy (1732). Any coffeehouse that operated into the wee hours of the morning was under suspicion for being the front for a brothel.
I find it interesting that the coffeehouses or cafes of today really are just places to drink coffee or tea and socialize, work or read quietly. In Vancouver, there are a few cafes that allow their patrons to smoke marijuana, not unlike Amsterdam but these aren’t prevalent. Unless I’m completely naïve (of which I have been rightly accused at times), most coffee shops today are quite a tame social creature compared to certain ones of yesteryear.
Q: What would you think of a coffee shop that sold much more than just coffee or food?
When you stop by a coffee shop today, it isn’t unusual to have access to a free copy of today’s local papers and perhaps a few free community ones.
The 5th estate was born out of coffeehouses of the 17th century. Since the coffeehouse was the place for news gathering and sharing (or gossiping some wags would have it), it seemed natural that newsletters would soon pop up. And they did.
Some coffeemen would write, print and publish newssheets of their own and others would take a subscription to several. Anything was permissible in the coffeehouse newssheet so long as it sold subscriptions. Though if you did offend your readers, they wouldn’t hesitate in taking you, the writer out the back and beat you to a pulp without much ado.
In Brian Cowan’s book The Social Life of Coffee, a coffeeman was getting information from a parliamentary clerk and selling the information through his coffeehouse in 1664.
Apparently, it was not uncommon for 17th century people to have more than one income stream. The coffee business didn’t pay terribly well and additional sources of revenue needed to be sought out. Government clerks, postmasters, and even some king’s messengers were all in positions to have access to sensitive information and they sold that information to coffeemen so that both parties increased their meager incomes.
It wasn’t only local news that interested coffeehouse patrons but also news from abroad. Paris, Amsterdam, Leiden, Rotterdam, Haarlem and Flanders were a few places from which many coffeehouses received newspapers.
Information, news, gossip, education call it what you will but facts (true or otherwise) was a great way to draw customers into the coffeehouse.
Q: Would you go to one coffee shop more than another if it supplied more newspapers both locally and internationally?
It’s seems like such a radical idea – having books and beverages in the same space, and yet there is nothing like drinking a hot cup of tea and reading a good book. When Starbucks and Chapters joined forces a few years back, it seemed like a ground breaking partnership.
Since I’ve been working on this project, I’ve found some interesting historical data that proves Starbucks and Chapters aren’t so unique. In Brian Cowan’s invaluable book The Social Life of Coffee, he writes that some booksellers and coffeehouses developed partnerships so that books could be sold in the coffeehouse. Book auctions were quite commonplace in 17th century London and the coffeehouse or tavern was the preferred venue.
The customers for these auctions generally wealthy bourgeoisie or aristocrats, though if you could pay for your bid, then anybody was allowed in.
Short’s Coffeehouse in Oxford was given a library of texts from a group of young Christ Church College students in the late 17th century for the enjoyment, enlightenment and education of their fellow students.
Some 17th century coffeehouses were the centres of intellectual discussion and debate, especially in the university town of Oxford. But much like any free-wheeling social arena, the intellectual debate could vary greatly and the information obtained there could be quite spurious.
Remind anyone of internet chatrooms?
Q: Why do you think the modern day coffee shop isn’t a hot bed of intellectual debate?
When coffeehouses first started in 17th London they were a very different social place than anywhere else. The pub and the church were the main social spaces. These spaces were regulated very strictly, the upper class and lower classes had specific places. Now the squire or lord of the area share a bevvie with his tenants in the lower area of the pub, but chances are he’d rather meet with the other higher ups of the area in the upper rooms.
When the coffeehouse appeared, it was so new that nobody could work out how the social hierarchy should occupy the space. So everybody just mucked in.Lords and underlings rubbed elbows for the first time. The coffeehouse was the first place where equality and democracy was avidly talked about and practiced.
In fact, the coffeehouse was such a well-known place for discussing republican ideals that Charles the II tried shutting them down on suspicion of sedition. He didn’t succeed.
The furniture that was developed for the coffeehouse actually contributed greatly to bringing democracy to life in England. The pub had small tables and chairs, but some of the larger coffeehouses had long tables where you could sit wherever you liked. There was no such thing as reservations. It was first come, first serve. Shocking notions for 17th century England.
There was a debating club called The Rota, and it met at Turk’s Head Coffeehouse. A piece of furniture was designed for the members of this club. It was a U-shaped table so that the coffee boys could refill the cups of the membership with having to lean over them. Rather like a latter day version of King Arthur’s round table. The word-meisters among you will recognize that the word Rota is Latin for wheel which implies roundness, no one is higher than another, everyone taking his turn. Democratic ideas, indeed.
Mind you, the coffeehouse began as the place for the avant garde of 17th English aristocracy to show off their hip-ness to new trends. If you were a social climbing wanna-be, then you marched yourself over to the nearest coffeehouse to rub shoulders with these gatekeepers of style and influence. If you were happy to be a drunken yokel, then the local tavern was your hang-out.
When Starbucks began in the 1980’s, there was a certain cache value to patronizing this new, hip re-invention of the coffeehouse. Certain coffee shops attract a certain customer, for example a Tim Horton’s customer can be different to the kind of person who prefers a really funky independent coffee shop.
But discussions on all varieties of topics still take place at coffee shops, even political ones.
Q:Do you make judgments about a person’s station in life, attitudes, etc. based on the coffee shop they go to most often? Does it matter to you which coffee shop you frequent?
When I think of café life, I often think of two images. One image is the completely elegant and refined European coffee shop of the late 19th century with beautiful ladies in long, elaborate gowns and magnificent hats sipping delicately out of fine bone china cups.
The other image is of a rather seedy café on Paris’ left bank, like Montmatre where they play “Le Jazz Hot” and the air is full of the smoke from blazing Gauloises. The café of the 1920’s is a place of disenchanted, American ex-pats and artists looking for something more in life than just a pay cheque. They want to drink deeply from the well of life.
Of course, there are other equally potent images from coffeehouse culture. The Beat Generation wore nothing but black (long before the goth culture took it over) and were nihilistic. Poetry readings took place in these places and marijuana smoke blended with cigarette smoke to obscure the view and the mind.
Coffeehouses or cafes today seem rather tame and plain by comparison. Oh yes, there are the gorgeous European coffeehouses still around. But they are in Europe usually. North American cafes tend to be rather pallid, slightly industrial looking spaces, although I must admit that many cafes are trying to move up market with lush interior decorating. But, by and large, modern North American cafes lack that certain well, je ne sais quoi, if you’ll pardon my French.
Perhaps time will bestow on a certain grandeur or romantic raffish quality to a select few. One never knows.
Q: What do you think of when you think about cafes or café life?
Though I haven’t dated for many a long year, I understand from those in the know that the first safe stop on the road to love is the coffee date. It’s a cheap, non-committal venue which allows both parties to assess each other for compatibility.
My husband and I even go out for coffee as way to re-connect with each other. Away from the house and its multitude of distractions, sipping a cup of coffee and sharing a big-ass cookie at a local coffee shop is a nice treat as well as a way to relax.
The informal reports I get from my single friends about the dating scene in Vancouver seem to be largely about not having a place to find the hot, sexy dream date they’ve been fantasizing about or even just someone reasonably nice who isn’t totally creepy.
In one of the local “quick” papers here, the “24” to be exact, is an article by Sarah Rowland called “Changing Your Type”. She talks about the Café Medina as the space to pick up men. Truly, I hadn’t really thought of a coffee shop as a pick up joint. I’m so retro, I still think of clubs and bars as de rigueur for meeting that certain someone.
But in Vancouver, the town surrounded by mountains and seas filled with people biking, hiking and doing other strenuous activities you really shouldn’t do while under the influence, clubs and bars aren’t necessarily the best place to find your life partner or even a partner for a few months. There are really so few public social places in which you can mingle and if you aren’t an outdoor enthusiast the options dwindle even more.
This is where the café comes to the rescue. It’s public. It’s low key. You can easily do other things there, besides ogling eye candy, especially if there is no eye candy on offer.
So get out to your local caffeinated watering hole and find the love of your life!
Q: How would you go about picking up someone you spotted at a café?
Please check out Caffe Culture’s sister blog, Coffee Shop Office. If you take the survey there you will be entered into a draw to win a monthly prize of $25 to your favourite café and you will be entered into the draw for the grand prize, a java commuter gift pack of $150.
The Coffee Shop Office blog talks about the advantages, challenges and resources for java commuters, aka people who use coffee shops and cafes as alternative office space.
The start of these blogs is due to several conversations between Gregg Taylor, a well-respected Vancouver career coach and me. Gregg wanted a partner in crime, so to speak, to research the trend of using coffee shops as alternative office space. I thought this was a great project and as usual I ran on all sorts of tangents like history, cultural practices, little known bits of information about coffee, coffee houses and the people who frequent them.
So Gregg and I decided that all these great ideas needed two separate spaces to grow and thrive. Separate but connected.
Start your own connection today with Coffee Shop Office and help us out with our research on java commuters. Gregg and I would really like to hear your café experiences. Don’t be shy – tell your friends!
Some of you may be familiar with the Japanese Tea Ceremony. But how many of you are familiar with the Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony?
I’d never seen it or heard of it until I stumbled across the article by Emily Doyle, Ethiopian Coffee Ceremony. The ceremony that Doyle outlines has the ritualized care and attention we associate with the Japanese Tea Ceremony.
It begins with a young woman dressed in traditional Ethiopian clothes. The equipment used to make the coffee is reverently brought on scented grasses. Then the washed green coffee beans are placed in the coffee roasting pan and cooked over a small open fire. The roasted beans are then presented to the participants to smell the wonderful aroma. A mortar and pestle are used to pound the beans into coffee powder.
Boiling the powder and water takes place in a coffee pot which is called jebena. Since the elaborate coffee pot does not have a filter, the boiled coffee is poured through a finely woven cloth.
Tiny china cups receive this lovingly prepared liquid. The young woman with practiced hand pours the coffee out in thin stream from quite a height. The coffee is drunk with a quantity of sugar stirred in but no milk is added.
The ceremony is traditionally performed three times per day, morning, afternoon and evening. The preparation of the coffee takes about ½ hr and traditionally three cups of coffee are drunk at a sitting.
But the three cups are not just plain old joe. Each serving is named. The first is Abol, the second, Tona and Baraka is the third. The last cup is especially important to drink because according to Ethiopian culture, the third cup contains a blessing.
