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Passion will take you there

In general, changes need to take place in the industry Being a barista is a hard
around minimum wage levels. Some coffee shop owners work. It might seem
easy, just making coffee
trying to pay as much as possible for the barista job, but
and chatting with
it’s still never going to be the highest paid job in the world. customers. But that’s just
But we all believe that as long as there is room in the in- the tip of the iceberg.
dustry for coffee, business will keep growing. There is There is a lot of hard
room for individuals to progress and be promoted within work behind this front.
a company and make a career of it.
Austin, who is an engineer with La Marzocco Shang-
hai, started as a Barista in Kunming back in 2010, at first,
it was just a job for him, he complained a lot about 2-4
days break for a month was tough days. He liked to drink
latte but didn’t have much in his head for what this job A year later, he got a job with La Marzocco, “I think
could lead him to, he later used an opportunity to learn I have found my dream job now. I love being a barista to
how to roast coffee for the coffee shop and the whole sale make a cup of nice coffee and hand it to my customer, and
coffee beans for the shelf, as well as some other cafés… it I also enjoy the process of learning different coffee com-
opened the world of coffee to him from there. He decided ing from different origins… Because of those experiences
to move to Shanghai in 2017 at the age of 25 to help a I had in the past, I know that a good coffee machine is the
friend with a newly opened specialty coffee shop, where final stop and key point of that cup of coffee will be hand-
he started to work with this trendy looking La Marzocco ed to the final customer. I only can do my job well because
espresso machine which was fascinating to him… I know that every job has a purpose and they all matter.”
A coffee chain hiring-manager once told me: “When
we hire, we look for passion and interest, there’s so much
to learn in coffee, but as far as barrier to entry is con-
cerned, it’s still like any other jobs where companies want
you to demonstrate a passion for what you do, after all,
you will be provided with resources and training to do
your job.
Barista Alex told me: “The best decision I made in
coffee, was to align a career with what I love. I seek out
companies to work for that I would really enjoy spending
my time for. I met many coffee friends who got into the
coffee industry from being a regular customer in a coffee
shop, and it made difference.”

Be prepared to turn your coffee job into
a career

Professional baristas are in high demand these days
and it can be a competitive industry, too. Many coffee
shops hiring managers would also look for individual
qualities such as good listening and communication,
problem solving and customer service skills. Barista
works closely with customers, so it is good to have those
abilities or get trained on the job to have them, have an
outgoing personality, and present those qualities in a
professional manner.

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