Degrees in café culture
It doesn't sound difficult. Pouring milk in a straight line and at a consistent flow, from a jug into a cup partially filled with coffee is not a typical skill that scholars would go to university to learn.
Yet here I am with a bunch of fellow students challenged with performing this task under the spotlights at the launch of a 'University of Coffee' in London.
An initiative of Italian coffee brand Illy, the university has been expanded from its base in Trieste, Italy, in a bid to teach UK barstaff the basics of making a good cup of coffee.
Basics such as pouring milk consistently in a straight line - a technique that is apparently conducive to a good cup of coffee - because it minimises the disturbance of the base onto which you are pouring it.
You're probably thinking that a room full of Italians stylishly sipping espressos and pontificating about the artisan virtues of their country's coffee is not the best place for pub staff to be trained up for the more everyday coffee demands of their British customers.
The continental café culture - and the resulting continental coffee-consuming culture - that was predicted to hit UK pubs and bars after the arrival of the smoking ban has not really happened.
Little has changed about the way consumers drink hot drinks in our country. The tall cups of milky coffee that give caffeine addicts their kicks in Grimsby or Bolton remain a world away from the shorter serves sipped in Rome and Milan.
Missing responsibilityHowever, Illy stresses that these courses are all about going back to basics and helping outlets to make drinks targeted at their particular market.
"There's a sense of responsibility missing in the UK," says Marco Arrigo, the course leader. "Staff don't assume, as they should, that they need to produce everything well and within a minute. Everyone, wrongly, wants to become a barista [coffee maker, to you and me] first, rather than just being a good barman."
The course teaches that having a good coffee offering should be based around simple but effective procedures which are repeated by staff order after order.
Arrigo says of the taller style of coffees favoured in the UK: "Whether it's right or wrong, that's what the customer is ordering and we have to serve that correctly."
The university's UK branch, he adds, is aimed not at big coffee house chains, but at independent operators "for whom the existing courses in this country are not relevant".
The adaptation of coffee-making techniques to English coffee culture presents certain challenges which barstaff need to bear in mind, according to Illy. Coffee has never been produced to suit the addition of a lot of heated, frothy milk. It is difficult to get a cup of coffee served in this way to maintain a pleasant "mouth feel". The heated water and the milk will, unless it's carefully blended, separate as the drink cools.
This is where pouring milk in straight lines comes in.
"Coffee is a complex chemical reaction," says Arrigo. "It's about mixing oil from the beans with water. The difference between a poorly-made cup and a well-made cup is like the difference between eating eggs and olive oil and eating mayonnaise."
Making a dentEngland is the 10th country to get an Illy University, and the company is aiming to put 25,000 students through the course worldwide by 2010. Nevertheless, it has a long way to go to make a dent in the UK's pub scene.
Illy currently has close to 300 pub clients in the UK, a number which suggests its presence in this market is dwarfed by a brand such as Lavazza, which has a successful partnership with JD Wetherspoon.
Illy is setting itself apart from agreements like this, which it sees as the 'value end' of the market. Stephen Barlow, managing director of Illy importer and distributor Euro Food Brands, points to food-led pubs "upping their games and looking to develop high-quality coffee offerings" as the real opportunity for coffee to be developed in the on-trade.
As long as barstaff can pour straight, of course…
• Upgrade your coffee offer - see Back to Basics
The universityThe university started life as the Università del Caffè, founded in Trieste in 2000, and designed for barstaff, coffee growers and coffee enthusiasts. To date, it has schooled over 7,000 people.
The half-day UK course costs £75 per person and is adapted to the needs of the UK market, namely consumers' fondness for milk-based drinks such as latte and cappuccino. It is based at the Excel Centre in London's Docklands.
Courses include:
• The blend
• The hardware - the grinder and the coffee machine. Students are taught the importance of maintaining cleanliness
• 'The hand of the barman', especially their treatment of milk.
Illy CEO Andrea Illy on café culture
"To have café culture in the UK would be a big transformation. Pubs were born for a different purpose. They could, though, add coffee as a complementary product. There can be the concept of a shop within a shop - The university
The university started life as the Università del Caffè, founded in Trieste in 2000, and designed for barstaff, coffee growers and coffee enthusiasts. To date, it has schooled over 7,000 people.
The half-day UK course costs
£75 per person and is adapted to the needs of the UK market, namely consumers' fondness for milk-based drinks such as latte and cappuccino. It is based at the Excel Centre in London's Docklands.
Courses include:
• The blend
• The hardware - the grinder and the coffee machine. Students are taught the importance of maintaining cleanliness
• 'The hand of the barman', especially their treatment of milk.
