My cousin is a coffee nut. She’s an aficionado. Coffee is important to her. She appreciates good coffee.
What I mean is, when she forks out between $3.50 – $4.50 for a takeaway coffee she hopes it’s going to be well made.
The problem is that you can count on your hand the number of places where the coffee is properly made. Where there’s a trained barista working the ‘piano.’ Where the taste and the blend, the colour and thickness of the froth are just as important as the silly leaf pattern.
She can be embarrassing too, this cousin of mine. It’s pretty confronting going to get a coffee with her. You know why? She speaks her mind. She tells them if the coffee is not up to her standards. She tells them and I back slowly away.
I’m tainted with that english politeness. Here in Australia, we were colonised by the British and that’s one of the hangovers. Politeness. We tend to seethe not speak up. We vote with our feet.
Is that good? NO.
Last week my cuz was in her local cafe (she lives out of Sydney.) She happened to compliment the young lady making the coffee. It was good. Up to her standards. The owner overheard this and exclaimed … ‘Oh. Coffee politics!’
No it’s not coffee politics at all. If you run a cafe, you make coffee. The coffee is supposed to be good at a cafe, hence the name … cafe.
Is it strange to expect your customers to not care about the coffee you serve?
Go on. Invest in your self, your staff.
Train them up. Give them the goal to make prize winning coffee. Make them proud!
And, get out of the kitchen if you can’t stand the heat.
