[[{“value”:”World Barista Champion 2023 Boram Um. Image: Eversys
As technology and automation in the coffee industry continues to evolve, so does the role of the barista. Global Coffee Report hears from three Eversys Ambassadors and Barista Champions about their predictions for the future of the profession.
Despite the origins of European coffee culture dating back to the 17th century, it wasn’t until the 1930s that the word ‘barista’ was coined in Italy to define bartenders who would serve both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Today, the term has been adopted across the world to describe anyone who serves coffee as a profession – from novices starting their careers to competition champions breaking the boundaries of innovation.
While the coffee industry has steadily grown since ‘barista’ became common language and the role has gradually evolved, over the past 10 years it has accelerated into an era of technological revolution. Three baristas with first-hand experience of its maturation are Barista Champions Dale Harris (World Barista Champion 2017), Boram Um (World Barista Champion 2023), and Simon Sun (China Barista Champion 2023).
As Eversys Ambassadors, Harris, Um, and Sun work with the Super Traditional espresso machine manufacturer to redefine the coffee industry by blending advanced technology with time-honoured traditions. Embedded in their local communities, they collaborate with the Swiss brand to ensure its products reflect the needs of baristas, café owners, and roasters in their regions, and therefore have a unique view of the role of the barista around the world.
Harris, who started his professional coffee career in the United Kingdom around 15 years ago, says being a barista has changed dramatically since the late 2000s.
“Historically, being a barista was an entry-level job and there was an expectation they would move through the business fast – as was the case with many hospitality roles. When I started working in coffee, it wasn’t really regarded that there was any skill there,” he says.
“It was a very manual profession. Baristas were learning craft-based skills, such as how to dose coffee in a portafilter to get the right quantity and doing repetitive actions like tamping. You got your hands dirty.”
World Barista Champion 2017 Dale Harris. Image: Eversys
The advancement of technology and machinery over the past decade has been, according to Harris, one of the major catalysts for change. However, he believes these advancements have made the barista’s job both more complicated and more simple.
“As the standard of coffee has got better, so has the technology to make it. Baristas have a lot more control with the equipment they use now, such as temperature stability which helps make shots taste more consistent, but the machines themselves are often more complex,” he says.
“Where the barista role used to be more physical and repetitious, it’s moved somewhere closer to that of a sommelier, where they can talk about choice, origin, processing, and roasting. However, that doesn’t mean coffee has to become expensive, rather the inherent knowledge of products has become more important and valued in many places.”
This shift of focus from craft towards service is something Boram Um has noticed in South America, where he owns a collection of cafés serving beans from his family’s farms in Brazil.
“Since I launched my first coffee shop in 2015, I’ve seen an increased interest in origin and processing from baristas. Armed with this new wealth of knowledge, they want to be able to share this experience with the customer, so they’re focusing on service and communication,” says Um.
Both Um and Harris credit the advancement of automatic technology with giving baristas more time to concentrate on service.
“Technology and automation have removed many of the physical aspects of the role, meaning baristas can make coffee faster and improve quality, while also serving people better. I love that machines like Eversys’ free up baristas from the physical act and being hidden behind a machine, and give them the freedom to spend more time with customers,” says Harris.
“Automatic machines can also do things more consistently and in a more controllable way. It makes achieving the higher standards of coffee more accessible to more baristas and cafés.”
In South America, Um says the adoption of super-automatic machines is helping to alleviate some of the pressures caused by staff shortages.
“There’s a crisis in terms of finding long-term professional baristas who will stay with a company. This isn’t just a problem in South America, it’s global,” he says.
“Use of automation is creating better workflow, speeding up service, and producing better quality and consistency of extraction.”
Harris believes these global labour shortages will have a profound impact on the role of the barista going forward.
“Labour is expensive right now and it’s hard to find the right people, and when you do you need to pay them well. I want the barista role to be a professional, respected role, and one that needs to be paid more – one way to achieve that sustainability for cafés is if there are less people physically making the coffee. That’s where super automatics such as Eversys’ machines come in,” he says.
Chinese Barista Champion Simon Sun. Image: Eversys
For Chinese Barista Champion Simon Sun, the infancy of the Chinese market means he has a unique view on the evolving role of the barista in comparison to Um and Harris in the more established South American and European coffee industries.
“The Chinese market is quite different to the rest of the world, as coffee is a new concept for Chinese people and tea is still the preferred beverage. Coffee grew very rapidly during the pandemic and the industry has increased so fast. A lot of coffee consumers have only ever drunk specialty coffee,” he says.
“When I started out around 10 years ago, the barista had essentially same role as a waiter. However, as the industry has grown, a lot of people have become more educated and embraced specialty skills.”
Sun believes the Chinese market is split between smaller specialist venues that champion traditional machines and rapidly expanding café groups that are adopting super-automatic technology.
“China’s expanding coffee scene has created more baristas, roasters, coffee tasters, and many other professional talents but, with the talent needs of large coffee chains growing, it still cannot meet the demands of the market,” he says.
“Therefore, fully automatic intelligent machinery and equipment have become of rigid demand. These modern machines have solved the core problems of high personnel costs and long training cycles, enabling coffee chain enterprises to expand rapidly.”
According to Um, on his last visit to China he visited Lucky Draw in Shanghai where an Eversys Cameo machine allowed the team to serve six or seven different single origins side by side.
“The use of the Eversys super-automatic meant the baristas were able to fully explain each of the coffees and focus on the customer experience,” he says.
“I also see a lot of Eversys machines in big chain stores in Asia, and for those venues they eliminate a bit of that human variable.”
Image: Eversys Cameo. Image: Eversys
The Eversys Cameo can produce up to 175 espressos per hour at a 23-second extraction time, alongside 170 hot water beverages. The machine’s speed, consistency, and ease of use are all designed to maximise the coffee potential of medium-volume café environments.
As Eversys Ambassadors, all three of the Barista Champions highlight the Super Traditional brand’s machines as leaders in the field and believe they’ll play an important role in the future of the barista.
“I see Eversys machines being applied to both ends of the coffee market. I see them being crucial to the fast expansion of big chain cafés, as well as being used in very high-end places,” says Um.
The ability of Eversys machines to offer variety and flexibility is something that the Ambassadors believe will be an advantage of the brand as global coffee trends continue to display preferences for diversity and signature drinks.
“Because the Chinese coffee market is developing so fast and there are many different types of consumer groups, there is still ample room for growth in coffee consumption in the future,” says Simon.
“Five years ago, it was mostly traditional drinks like americano, cappuccino, and latte, but there was a big coffee evolution through the pandemic and a lot of baristas started to experiment with signature drinks. Young people prefer these creative drinks, instead of traditional coffees, and I think this divergence will continue.”
According to Harris, the increasing popularity of signature drinks across the world is a way for cafés to stand out from the crowd.
“You can buy a flat white anywhere, so each business needs a unique selling point. I think in the next few years we’ll continue to see more variety in what baristas are offering but finding ways to do that with quality coffee,” he says.
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This article was first published in the September/October 2024 edition of Global Coffee Report. Read more HERE.
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