What is barista work really like in specialty coffee shops?

The romantic image of brewing pour-over coffee in a sunlit shop does not match the job. Baristas at chain stores and independent specialty coffee shops wear many hats: making drinks, cleaning, greeting customers, and sometimes helping with new store preparation and bar counter design. Wages are generally modest while work intensity is high, and the required skills go well beyond latte art.

Social media and film have painted cafe life too kindly, so people entering the field often arrive with the wrong expectations. Beyond brewing, cleaning, and serving, a barista who can also handle store openings or counter design ends up with almost no rest time, and may need a side income. Considering the skill set and customer types first makes the choice more rational.

Many people have a romantic vision of the barista profession—in a warm little shop bathed in sunlight, with melodious jazz playing, brewing fragrant pour-over coffee and crafting beautiful latte art. However, the real life of a barista is far from this cozy. Whether at a chain coffee shop or an independent specialty café, baristas often wear many hats—making coffee, cleaning, greeting customers, and even participating in new store preparations and bar counter design. Wages are generally not high, yet the work intensity is considerable. This article restores the true face of the barista profession from multiple angles—skill requirements, customer types, job duties, career development—to help friends considering entering the field think rationally about their choice.

Perhaps movies and social media have painted café life too beautifully, so many people imagine a barista's daily routine like this: basking in a warm little shop bathed in sunlight, with soothing jazz in your ears, brewing aromatic pour-over coffee in your hands, or crafting beautiful latte art, with a firm and confident gaze, watching customers come and go, and a day quietly passing in comfort and calm…

I really can't keep writing this!!! Snap out of it! What baristas do is actually no different from odd jobs, really! And the pay is quite limited… Many baristas who have already entered the industry complain like this: "Being a barista is just a lifestyle attitude; behind the scenes, you're just broke! You've got to have a side hustle." This is no exaggeration at all~ Let's first look at what skills a barista actually needs to master! (Because the content is too long, I typed it in my notes and took a screenshot)

Notice the bolded paragraphs in the image, especially the last two? "Salary doesn't matter, you can survive without money"… If you can accept these, welcome to the barista ranks; if you can't, please consider carefully… Of course! More work, more pay. If a barista, besides brewing coffee, cleaning, and greeting customers, can also do the things in the image like "preparing new stores, bar counter design…" then congratulations, you are a super barista with no rest time. To reach this level, either you're the boss, or brewing coffee is just part of your side job. All the aesthetic imagination is just from the customer's perspective~ Behind the glamorous appearance of a barista lies a lot of bitterness… The customers you imagine: gentle and considerate, coming in quietly, reading a book, drinking coffee, enjoying a coffee moment.

Actual customers (some): chatting loudly, waiter I want to order, taking photos of the coffee every which way, I want a warm pour-over, latte without milk, what kind of coffee shop is this if there's no tea, do you have toothpicks here… And the kind of customer you imagined, the chance of meeting one is like finding a hidden edition in a blind box. Is working in a coffee shop very leisurely? Not at all! There are all kinds of coffee shops—ones that sell cakes, light meals… and composite coffee shops combined with bookstores, clothing stores, etc. Often in these shops, the busiest thing is not coffee production, but various non-coffee matters. Nominally a barista, but actually a waiter who can make coffee.

"No way! I've really seen very leisurely coffee shops! The staff and boss just sit looking at their phones and computers." This situation could mean two things: one, this coffee shop is an offline experience store, and the real business is in e-commerce; the other, cherish it while you can, because the boss might be calculating how much longer the funds can keep the café afloat. Customers in coffee shops are really not all artsy youth. They can be roughly divided into three types: ordinary consumers who order and quietly drink their coffee—the angel type; picky coffee enthusiasts who nitpick with half-understood knowledge, but as long as you have solid coffee knowledge to converse with them, you can become a "big shot" in their eyes; special groups with a strong culture of their own, self-important, and you can only sigh helplessly. Besides having solid customer service skills, baristas also need to continuously improve their coffee knowledge, from agricultural planting to coffee knowledge, from roasting and brewing to industry news and industry development… They need to have an in-depth understanding of everything about coffee to convey the correct coffee culture view to coffee novices, rather than just staying at "I want to make a good cup of coffee." Secondly, many people want to be baristas because they think they can brew and drink unlimited coffee every day. There's a saying, "Too much of anything makes it worthless." When you're facing coffee all day long and you don't genuinely want to understand coffee deeply, you'll quickly get tired of this job and finally sigh: it's better to just be an enthusiast.

Many peers say when chatting that after making coffee or opening a coffee shop, they become more and more irritable and stressed. Because reality is completely different from what they imagined, and the work is very tough. Yes, if at first you only yearned for the life of brewing coffee and latte art, then reality will hit you hard… Why? Because the best-selling item in coffee shops is lemon tea… (This is a meme, and also the result of many coffee shops compromising with society). Although this article has written a lot to advise everyone not to have too idealistic expectations about opening a coffee shop or being a barista. It's not that baristas have no future; it's just that people's thoughts often stay at "I like brewing and drinking coffee." Opening a coffee shop isn't necessarily unprofitable, but you can't do business purely on ideals and sentiment—at least in today's society, it won't work. Persisting in ideals is good, but reality is ultimately reality.

It's not that I don't support everyone becoming baristas or opening coffee shops, but I hope that before doing this, you first think clearly about what you really want. In the years of being in this industry, the writer clearly knows that baristas in both chain coffee shops and independent coffee shops work hard… The former are emotionless coffee robots, but you can learn some management knowledge useful for future work and hone a good customer service temper; the latter, your busiest times may not be because of brewing coffee, but as long as you keep improving, humbly learning, and self-learning, you'll see that the coffee industry isn't just about brewing and drinking coffee—there are more interesting things than these. Only when you become strong yourself can you look further.

If you choose this profession just because you think a barista's job is easy, please think twice. All standing still will not bring you any progress and will waste a lot of precious time. All jobs have their unspeakable difficulties; no job is truly comfortable. A line from a book once impressed the writer deeply: "Your so-called stability and comfort are just wasting your life." Don't waste your precious "capital" because of something that feels comfortable for a moment. Image source: Internet Professional coffee knowledge exchange, more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account cafe_style) For more specialty coffee beans, please add private WeChat Front Street Coffee (FrontStreet Coffee), WeChat ID: kaixinguoguo0925

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.