What does a barista do?
You make drinks that need to be right and fast at the same time, for a queue that can see exactly how long you are taking.
Also called: coffee maker, café assistant.
A day looks like
- 1You open up, switch the machine on an hour early because it needs to be properly hot, and dial in the grinder.
- 2The morning rush: forty minutes where you are making, taking money and remembering four orders at once.
- 3You re-dial the grinder after lunch because the beans have changed with the weather. Really.
- 4You clean the machine properly at close — the part of the job that decides whether tomorrow tastes right.
Hardest part
Being fast without going quiet. The queue wants speed, but people came to a café instead of a machine because someone spoke to them.
Best part
Regulars. You learn a hundred people's orders and a fair number of their lives, and the good ones make your morning too.
How you actually become a barista
- At schoolNo qualifications needed to start. Turn up, be reliable, learn the machine.
- TrainingOn the job, plus barista courses once you are serious about it.
- How longWeeks to be useful, a year or two to be genuinely good.
- Your first jobCafé assistant — tills, tables and clearing, before you are let near the machine.
Frequently asked questions
- Do you need qualifications to be a barista?
- No. Most people start with none and learn on the machine. It is one of the easiest skilled jobs to get into and one of the most portable — cafés exist in every town in the world.
- Why does coffee need re-grinding during the day?
- Ground coffee reacts to humidity and to how the beans have aged. The same grinder setting pours differently in the morning and the afternoon, so a good barista tastes and adjusts.
- Is being a barista a real career?
- It can be. Plenty treat it as a first job, but head baristas, roasters, trainers and café owners all start at the same machine, and the good ones are in demand everywhere.
More from Hospitality & Tourism
Chef
You spend the afternoon getting ready for two hours of chaos, and how well you prepared decides whether those two hours are cooking or panic.
Hotel Housekeeper
You turn fourteen used rooms back into rooms that look like nobody has ever been in them, in an order that has to be exactly right.
Hotel Duty Manager
You are the most senior person in the building at three in the morning, and everything that nobody else can decide comes to you.
Head Housekeeper
You have a hundred rooms, eleven hours and nine people, and you decide in what order the building gets cleaned.
Catering Manager
You feed six hundred people in forty minutes, on a budget, and you are the person who has to know exactly what is in every dish.
Outdoor Instructor
You take other people's children up a hill or onto water, and the whole job is knowing when to turn round.
Cruise Hotel Officer
You run a hotel that cannot call anybody for help, is full of people who cannot leave, and is moving.
Baker
You turn flour and water into bread overnight, and almost everything you do is judged by hand rather than by a timer.
Pastry Chef
You work to the gram and to the degree, in the coldest corner of the kitchen, on the part of the meal people photograph.
Butcher
You break a carcass down into the cuts people recognise, following the animal's own seams rather than sawing through it.
Kitchen Porter
You keep the whole kitchen supplied with clean equipment — and if you stop, service stops about eleven minutes later.
Sommelier
You read a table, find the bottle that suits what they are eating and what they want to spend, and serve it in an order that has a reason behind every step.
Restaurant Manager
You run a room of strangers eating, a kitchen under pressure and a team who are all tired, and you keep all three of them working together.
Concierge
You know the city well enough to solve a stranger's problem in ten minutes, and you know which promises you can actually keep.
Bartender
You serve drinks fast and accurately to people who are gradually getting less reasonable, and you are legally responsible for when to stop.
Front of House Supervisor
You run a section during service — who goes where, in what order, and which table gets the next thing that comes out of the kitchen.
Events Coordinator
You run a day that happens once, cannot be rehearsed and cannot be repeated, for people who will remember it for the rest of their lives.
Tour Guide
You take a group of strangers somewhere, keep all of them safe and interested at the same time, and tell them the truth about it.