Barista

A barista is a professional who specializes in preparing and serving coffee, focusing on quality at every single step from the bean to the cup. In the specialty coffee world, this role is similar to a guide, as a good barista can explain the origin of the beans, the processing method used by the farmer, and the natural tasting notes you can discover in your drink. They manage the brewing process, which means extracting flavor from the coffee using water, by carefully adjusting temperature, grind size, and time. Instead of just pressing buttons on a machine, they constantly taste the coffee and tweak their recipes to hit a perfectly balanced, sweet spot. The word itself comes from Italian, where it originally simply meant a bartender, but today it is used globally to describe a true coffee craftsman.