Anyone who has worked as a barista for any amount of time at all knows the look. It’s the look on someone’s face who is fragile. Often, a person has only been up for an hour, and this might be their very first foray into the shared space of the outside world. Or, they might have spent their morning dealing with their kids or their partner or their dog or their emails or the person they accidentally woke up next to, and they come to the coffee shop as their first self-caring act of the day, as a small, slightly desperate plea for a small kindness from a stranger; a cup of coffee from a friendly person. The making of coffee is an intimate act, somehow. I think it’s because it often happens so soon after the vulnerability of sleep. If someone hands you a cup of coffee as you stumble to the campfire, it changes the whole scene. It says: “I was up before you, I’ve made the area safe and warm, and I care about your happiness.” If someone makes you coffee after you’ve spent the night in the same bed, it says: “You’re still welcome here, you should stay a little longer, and I want to make you happy.” These are stories of human compassion and affection. They are stories of solidarity and sympathy. And, when we work as baristas, we make a profession of it.
It’s funny how we think of professionalism. To call someone ‘professional’ is to ascribe to them a sort of coolness; an aloof, skilled, dispassionate ability to get the job done. When we become coffee professionals, therefore, we often focus on the technical skills: understanding brew ratios and measurements, memorizing taste descriptors and coffee varieties, practicing ever-more-nuanced abilities in tasting. These skills are important, of course, but they do not replace the critical skill of compassionate care that a barista much have, if they are to perform the constant expression of care that is a central part of the job.Although I am very sure we realize this at some level, it seems to me that we haven’t gotten completely clear on the importance of compassion in the coffee trade. We don’t often sit around and tell stories about how we delighted and surprised people. We trade extraction techniques and equipment hacks, but we don’t always trade techniques on how to make people feel cared for. We celebrate passion, but not compassion.
I don’t think it’s because we don’t care, I think it’s because we don’t understand compassion very well. I think we sometimes feel that compassion can’t be taught, that you either have it or you don’t, and that it comes at the expense of technical ability or knowledge. None of those things are true. Switching nimbly between the roles of skilled expert and caring host is a challenge, to be sure, but it is a critical part of making coffee for people as a profession. And practicing compassion is just like practicing perfect extraction or latte art: it gets better and easier the more you do it. Years ago, I was a bartending and cocktail history enthusiast. I loved learning that “Professor” Jerry Thomas, the most famous early bartender, called his customers ‘patients’. This was partially self-aggrandizing showmanship, of course, but it was partially driven by his awareness that his customers were under his care, in need of sympathy and ministration. I think this shows that Thomas came to his profession with affection and compassion in his mind. I think if we can, as a practice, think of our customers as people worthy of care it will go a long way towards helping us focus on this most important of barista skills.
! Commonplacing
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