Barista interview: Costa Academy's Cheryl Calaunan
The Costa Academy is the permanent training base of Costa Coffee in the UAE. Core skills barista trainer Cheryl Calaunan’s explains the steps they take in order to create better baristas
Can you explain what exactly the Costa Academy is?
At Costa Coffee we are working continually with our baristas to help them develop their skills and coffee knowledge and the Costa academy plays a big part in that. In the UAE, we currently have more than 600 baristas who are all regularly taking part in training or refresher sessions either at the academy or in store with one of our Barista Maestros.
We offer dedicated, specially formulated training sessions for all of our new joiners, as well as courses to train our baristas whenever we have a new product launch.
These refresher courses run through the company from top to bottom with regular sessions being held to enhance the skills and development of our supervisors, store managers and senior store managers.
Each course's difficulty is dependent on each barista’s experience and skill level. However, as a trainer, it is my job to work with each barista to help develop them and to push them to get to that next stage.
What is the most important lesson you need to learn to become a great barista?
We always try to teach our baristas to enjoy what they do, as well as to ensure that they are having fun while they work and learn. The most important lesson is to make sure they speak to, and interact with, their customers as this will increase their enjoyment of the job as well as improve the customer’s experience too.
Who benefits the most from these training courses?
Everyone benefits from extra training. First of all you have the baristas, who are able to keep learning new skills and improving themselves; from learning to make their first cup of coffee to eventually taking on their first team management responsibilities.
Our customers benefit because they can rely on receiving a consistently excellent cup of coffee and customer service whenever they visit one of our coffee houses; and ultimately Costa Coffee also benefits because it has happy employees and customers.
How important is the machinery and equipment you use in making a great cup of coffee?
At Costa Coffee we use CMA espresso machines that come in the Lisa, Marissa, Valina and Futura varieties.
We believe that these are the best on the market for delivering the quality coffee Costa is known for. They are also a great machine for our trainees to learn on as they are intuitive and deliver a consistently excellent espresso.
The Costa College Menu
Costa Coffee UAE core skills barista trainer Cheryl Calaunan runs us through the training required of every Costa barista:
THE NEW JOINERS COURSE
“In total, there are six weeks of intensive training before a new employee will serve their first cup of Costa to a customer.”
THE BARISTA MAESTRO COURSE
“This is a follow on course for baristas who have been with Costa for more than six months. Each barista maestro must have the ability to not only create the perfect coffee, but to be able to pass that knowledge onto their team members. There is an assessment to judge the ability of each barista of taking charge of the store in the absence of the store manager.”
New Product Courses
With every new product launch, we bring each of our store managers into the Academy for a practical hands on training session where they work on creating the new drinks until they have been signed off to brand standards. The store managers will then be able to return to their stores where they can share this knowledge with the rest of their team.