Distance Learning for Coffee Professionals

Café owners located far from a major city or their roaster—whether in a rural part of the state or in a large Chinese city—often face limited access to coffee education. How does one build a coffee menu, distinguish standard practice from passing trends, or train baristas, especially a high school employee, when the owner had to learn the espresso machine alone?

Two coffee schools, the American Barista and Coffee School (ABCS) and the Coffee Business School of the Cascades (CBSC), recently launched online courses in quick succession. Bruce and Matt Milletto, who run ABCS, spent four years considering how to reach café owners outside the world’s coffee hubs. “For a lot of owners, the only trained person locally is someone from Starbucks,” Bruce says, shaking his head. (Bruce is an advisory board member.) For Ed Arvidson at CBSC, the online course could reach new and future café owners without requiring the cost of travel and lodging to attend his school.

ABCS’ Online Barista Training provides courses for baristas and owners through a monthly subscription; the owner’s subscription includes training and testing for up to ten employees. Material is delivered in various media, with many videos shot in the ABCS’ Portland classroom. Barista courses begin with the basics and proceed to topics such as the influence of origin on a coffee. In the milk-steaming course, a lesson on improper techniques helps baristas recognize potential mistakes. The owner’s curriculum covers topics ranging from café ambience to employee manuals to social media. Over time, the content will evolve: ABCS will roll out more videos and other content, go deeper into certain subjects, update material to keep pace with the industry, and provide new material weekly—a substantial goal.

Ed’s curriculum on the CBSC website closely mirrors the in-person experience. “I was able to offer everything that I do in the four-day class,” he says. The ten-plus hours of video present slides and Ed’s avuncular, insightful narration. The course costs a flat fee. With a long career in the food and coffee industries, Ed’s course focuses heavily on the business of running a café and understanding how the money side works. More than six hours of classes cover leasing, build-out, hiring, budgets, and other nitty-gritty topics before Ed demonstrates how to make an espresso.

Meanwhile, the Midwest Barista School is working to place its extensively updated training materials online.

As with MOOCs and other forms of online education, there is the question of how to teach tactile skills at a distance. Matt says their curriculum will complement in-store training and provide standards for owners. At the same time, he says, “This isn’t about telling owners how to do coffee this one way. What we want to do is empower owners.”