"Do you know how valuable baristas are? After all, certification is so expensive!" Are barista certificates really useful?

Is Barista Certification Worth It? A Comprehensive Guide

Recently, our backend receives many questions about barista certification every day. As specialty coffee culture gradually becomes integrated into our daily lives, becoming a barista or opening a coffee shop has become an ideal career or lifestyle for many people. However, in an era where everyone can make coffee, how can you make your coffee or coffee shop stand out from the ordinary? Certification has become the first approach that comes to mind.

① Is certification really useful?

Yes, it's definitely useful. Just like the various exams we've taken throughout our lives, standardized examination systems allow everyone to understand their abilities and recognize their shortcomings and deficiencies. Courses are designed to help you master more knowledge or skills, while certification verifies whether you've learned the content from these courses. Therefore, the discussion isn't about whether you have a certificate, but whether the courses before certification are useful to you.

Certification acts as a stepping stone. Regardless of the level, within its corresponding domain, it provides opportunities to learn fundamental principles and operate more standardizedly. Alternatively, examinations serve as benchmarks, providing everyone with a reference value.

For example, the Q-Grade sensory exam. Sensory perception is inherently subjective—everyone can have different opinions, feelings, and understanding about the same cup of coffee. The course provides a reference value, allowing everyone to make judgments within the same reference framework, reducing significant individual sensory disputes.

② Barista certification helps you improve yourself, but doesn't prove how exceptional you are

Certification is a basic competency assessment exam. It cannot prove how exceptional you are, only that you've studied and can pass the course template assessment. However, in reality, baristas face ever-changing situations that cannot be as "stable" as studying and taking exams in training classes.

Therefore, passing an exam doesn't necessarily mean you've truly learned everything. A certificate is just a piece of paper—the real value lies in yourself. After completing the courses, you should continue to enhance your coffee expertise, learn more coffee knowledge, and master coffee skills—that's what truly matters.

Truly exceptional people don't stop at "I'm certified." Instead, leveraging their foundation, they continuously delve deeper into coffee-related knowledge, operational principles, and expand beyond, ensuring their vision and goals extend beyond just making coffee. The coffee industry might not be vast, but it definitely extends beyond the counter. Perhaps the world outside the counter is more worthy of in-depth exploration and innovative development.

③ Should you get certified before applying for a barista position?

Not necessarily. This can be chosen based on your personal situation, as not all coffee shops require baristas to have certification. After all, these certification fees are not inexpensive, and many certificates cannot be skipped—the entire set can cost over 10,000 or 20,000 yuan... the fees are quite high. Moreover, being certified doesn't necessarily mean you'll earn a higher salary than regular baristas; it mainly depends on the coffee shop owner's considerations for the future.

④ Do you need certification before opening a coffee shop?

Not necessarily. For ordinary consumers, whether the owner has certification isn't important because what everyone wants most is coffee with stable flavor and quality at reasonable prices (not suggesting competing on low prices). If you know nothing about coffee but want to open a coffee shop, you could learn relevant processes to improve yourself. However, before opening, you must ensure that your products are stable and acceptable to the general public.

For consumers who have some understanding and knowledge of coffee, whether the owner/barista is certified is even less important. Because people who truly drink coffee won't get caught up in how skilled someone is, nor will they ask a bunch of irrelevant questions—they can taste the difference. When drinkers think the coffee is good or worth it, you'll see them become regular customers naturally.

If customers casually mention or exchange some optimization suggestions during conversation, they're actually worth considering. We can't satisfy everyone's taste preferences, but we can continuously improve and optimize our understanding of coffee bean roasting/coffee extraction. Sometimes, customer suggestions might be more "valuable" than the theories and knowledge learned in training classes and exams.

⑤ What are the current internationally recognized coffee certifications?

Currently, the most authoritative barista certificate in the coffee industry is issued by the SCA (Specialty Coffee Association), which is basically globally recognized and holds the highest international recognition. SCA barista certificates are divided into three levels: beginner, intermediate, and professional. The beginner barista exam is relatively simple, with course content focusing on basic theory and practical knowledge.

For those who have already worked in coffee shops for a certain period, you basically don't need to take certification courses and can directly test for the SCA beginner certificate. If you feel your coffee knowledge and operational skills have reached a certain level, you can also skip the beginner level and directly test for the SCA intermediate certificate. You can skip the beginner certificate to directly test for the SCA intermediate certificate, but you must first obtain the intermediate barista certificate before testing for the SCA professional certificate.

Q-Grader is one of the coffee bean quality assessors certified by CQI (Coffee Quality Institute), belonging to a branch of the SCA education module, and is currently the most expensive certification in coffee certification.

Unlike the SCA course system, CQI focuses more on green bean quality assessment. Therefore, in addition to Q-Grader (Arabica coffee variety assessor), there's also R-Grader (Robusta coffee variety assessor). If you just want to be an ordinary barista or open an ordinary coffee shop, you really don't need to take the Q certification.

⑥ Are there national professional skill certificates for baristas?

In 2016, the State Council canceled 61 professional qualification permits and certifications, including barista certification. It wasn't until 2019 that socialized professional skill level certification began to be implemented, with China's barista professional qualification certification transitioning to a form led by the government and certified by third-party evaluation agencies. To put it simply, the government departments no longer supervise the issuance of various professional skill level certificates nationwide; instead, they are independently printed and issued by third-party evaluation agencies.

Currently, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People's Republic of China has published the National Professional Skill Standards for Baristas (draft for solicitation) on its official website. It is expected that barista certification will be reintroduced next year. If reintroduced, it might become the most valuable coffee skill certificate domestically, but it may not be recognized by the global coffee industry.

⑦ Differences between national professional qualification certificates before and after the reform

Differences: 1. The new certificates are no longer stamped by relevant departments of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security; instead, they are uniformly stamped with the official seal of third-party certification agencies. 2. The new certificate covers no longer feature the national emblem; instead, they bear the name of the third-party certification agency. 3. Examination formats can be conducted online or offline, subject to approval by relevant regulatory departments of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. 4. After reform, certificates are collectively referred to as professional skill level certificates; before reform, they were collectively referred to as national professional qualification certificates.

Similarities: All certificates can be verified on the professional skill level official website designated by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security. Certificates before and after the reform have equal validity, are nationally recognized, and are exempt from lifelong review.

Regardless of what level of barista certification you obtain, the value doesn't lie in the certificate itself, but in the meaningful and valuable things brought to everyone through the entire learning process. If you truly love coffee and can seriously face and do everything well, you can be a good barista even without certification.

This article's position: Answering questions.

Image source: Internet

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