Stumptown Coffee Roasters had a reputation for
baristas that sometimes were more savvy then friendly,
but the company is working to turn that around.
comes into an environment that is already rife with that air of
superiority or coffee snobbery, they are 99 out of 100 times
going to fall in step with that collective sort of attitude."
TIME LIMITS
There are of course limits to how helpful a barista can be
to someone unfamiliar with a coffeehouse menu. It's mostly a
function of how busy things are.
"How much time does the customer get to interact with
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the barista or the barista the customer at a busy shop?" Piquet
says. "I think there may be an eagerness with certain baristas
to communicate their passion to the customer, but in those
often brief, hurried moments it comes out poorly."
Receptiveness to new information has to be on both sides. If
a customer doesn't want to be "educated," it's not a coffeehouse
staff 's place to do so, Groot says.
"Most of our customers do not want us to educate them
with our expertise, they want to enjoy the fruit of it," he says.
"If a customer asks, that's different. They have opened the door
and we will answer them as best we can, helping them learn,
sharing our knowledge and passion and helping them enjoy."
When a customer is receptive to "education," there's a right
way to do it, coffee pros say. It's not good to hit them with too
much information all at once.
"Are they going to have the best experience if they're
immediately inundated with the elevation the coffee is grown
at, and the varietals, and all these other things?" Colombo says.
"Or is it better to really assess what that customer wants?"
Listening is the first step in education, agrees Gabriela
Cordón, a coffee marketing consultant based in Guatemala.
"I think coffee professionals need to sell the product, but
not through showing off," Cordón says. "A professional would
probably first listen to the customer needs to find that hook
