Bruce Milletto and the gang at Bellissimo — the folks who wrote the very nifty Bean Business Basics — have a new effort under way… and this time it’s hands-on.
The American Barista & Coffee School [get it, ABC?] is open, and the first students are surprised to discover just what there is to learn. Says one restaurant owner,
“We’re two weeks into it, and we didn’t even know we were doing it poorly,” she said. “How would I know? Some company came in, set me up, and, said ‘See ya.’ I’ve really been educated here. It’s an investment.”
Of course, if you don’t wanna pony up seven large to learn the ABCs at Bellissimo’s place, you can always jack into the collective wisdom of alt.coffee. You might even find somebody in your neighborhood who’d be happy to bring the lesson to you.
Be warned, the word on the buzz is that those coffee schools are fixed. They don’t really teach you anything but rather force you to make cheap wallets and soccerballs for nickels an hour while burly men in black masks whip you and yell obsenities in Gaelic; absolutely nothing to do with coffee. It’s true, my friend Sally told me she just barely escaped the school with her life, she had to beat a gaurd dog to death with her own hair baret!