Yahoo! Finance – Financially Fit
For starters, don’t call them slackers or hipsters — unless you want to get “decaffed.”1. “We didn’t exist 30 years ago.”Coffee is serious business: There are roughly 50,000 coffee shops in the U.S., posting $18 billion in annual sales, and according to a survey by the National Coffee Association, 24 percent of Americans reported drinking coffee outside the home in 2011. This wasn’t always the case; before 1982, finding a perfectly pulled espresso was a rarity, and there was no special name for the person who served up your morning joe. Today, baristas are expected to master a wide variety of frothy concoctions, and an uptick in training has helped legitimize the profession. In addition to new-employee drill sessions, some chains, like Emeryville, Calif.-based Peet’s Coffee & Tea, recertify their java masters on an annual basis. Indeed, for many, barista is a career choice, not a part-time job. “There’s a giant misconception that baristas are all slackers and hipster kids,” says Jason Dominy, outreach coordinator at Batdorf & Bronson Coffee Roasters, a specialty roasting company in Olympia, Wash., and a barista of 15 years. “But a lot of the people have college degrees and are in coffee because they are incredibly passionate about the product.”
