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Mikaela Wallgren Finland

Cute girl from Finland has just won second price in
World Brewing Championship, but she first started to brew
during her summer break when she was a part-time in a café,
where she also studied how to create an excellent coffee. Be-
fore she returned to coffee circles in 2011, she studied hotel
and restaurant management and worked in hotel industry for
some time. This also gave her the chance to have a double role pated in the event called Women-Focused Barista Connect,
in Danish,the Coffee Collective as an HR and barista.Accord- which gathers together women of coffee industry and invites
ing to the report of World Economic Forum 2015 on gender people with different backgrounds to share their professional
equality, out of 145 economies in the world, Scandinavia opinions. Mikaela met there a lot of like-minded friends, who
has the leading position. And that is the reason why Mikaela share her opinion that any competition is a healthy way to try
maintains an optimistic attitude: “If you really face gender yourself and promote your career.
prejudges, I suggest you to keep your work level high and fight
for equal rights and salary at the same time it might be a good
idea for coffee shops/HR departments to create a new system
of quality standards.” Coffee industry is very diverse: you can At the end of the day, sweating
work as a barista, manager and then grow to be a roaster or
a head of staff, but the most important thing is to find your and working hard is always worth it!
passion, that will keep you going. Last year Mikaela partici-

Eden-Marie Abramowicz USA

Those, who have seen “Barista” movie, will definitely tions as an example, it may be easy for a female competitor
recognize Intelligentisa Coffee former coach, Eden-Marie, to get scared if she already failed couple of times, but for the
who looked so beautiful and confident in front of cameras outside world being a woman seems as a competitive advan-
during South-West Barista Championship 2013. She spent tage. But if you ask us, the most important thing is to do your
her childhood in a village close to Atlanta, where she after best, which seems like an obstacle for any breakthrough, but
became a barista, gradually fell in love with it. In search of big- I believe, that we can overcome it.
ger stage, Eden left her small town for Los-Angeles, where she In January 2016, Eden founded training and consulting
joined one of the specialty coffee shops, Intelligentsia Coffee. company, Bastet Coffee, where she started to be a trainer, and
Thus, step-by-step she made her way she dreams about attracting more and more coffee lovers like
from a dishwasher to being the main she is. Eden admitted that there are always debates on the
coach and coffee bean buyer. question of male and female different career opportunities;
Although USA is one of the lead- for male barista and female barista mentoring techniques are
ers in specialty coffee, but in recent also different: “The criteria for female baristas is more strict:
years coffee industry changed dra- their voice tone, their dress – everything can influence guest’s
matically: if in the past not so many view of them. I hope female baristas will be more confident;
people knew who barista was, today, there is no need to be scared of competition or sexism, just
with the growth of coffee consumers, need to do your best. This is girls’ coffee power.” Series of
there is also a growing demand for changes did not stop Eden from developing herself in the cof-
professional baristas and there are fee world: in April, she was invited to Atlanta to be in SCAA
much more male baristas than female. Expo (Specialty Coffee Association of America) Latte Art
Eden shares: “As a female barista, I Tournament one of the judges, at the same time she focused
can totally understand what difficul- on developing a coffee machine for Sanremo brand. Being sur-
ties and challenges other women face rounded by men, Eden keeps her unique charm and hopes to
in this business. Let’s take competi- compete again to make her coffee dream come true.

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