What Does a Barista Do? Is It Suitable for a Career Change? What's the Salary?

Professional coffee knowledge exchange. For more coffee bean information, please follow Coffee Workshop (WeChat public account: cafe_style).

For more specialty coffee beans, please add FrontStreet Coffee on private WeChat, WeChat ID: qjcoffeex

I don't know when it started, but more and more people feel exhausted from their daily office work, facing endless daily reports, weekly reports, monthly reports, PowerPoint presentations, and meetings... Everyone begins to yearn for physical labor. Once, a customer was chatting with me when they suddenly stared blankly at the sunlight streaming in from outside and sighed: "You baristas are truly fortunate. I wish I could be like you, carefree every day, without having to face computers and meetings, without missing the morning sun and the evening sky..."

(That really struck a chord with my heart...) But at this moment when the customer was already so powerless, if I had answered: "The difference between you and me is that I can see sunlight because the shop is often full, so I'm sitting outside typing," this customer wouldn't have understood what I was talking about.

So I chose silence. Before they left, I finally replied: "No job is completely carefree. If you have a stable job, adjust your mindset and keep working hard at it~"

The Misconception of Being a Barista

The biggest misconception about being a barista is that it's "very comfortable" and the salary isn't bad either. The understanding of a barista's job content stops at what's depicted in aesthetic movies: brewing coffee daily and chatting with customers. Watching the comings and goings of customers, a day passes in comfort and tranquility.

Therefore, whenever everyone feels tired, the first thing that comes to mind is the job of a barista. Although they know that being a barista nowadays involves more physical labor and requires being an all-rounder, the yearning for this profession has never ceased.

The Real Challenges of Being a Barista

Is being a barista just a job that one can handle by simply washing cups, cleaning, learning coffee knowledge, and learning coffee techniques? In my years of experience, the biggest realization is that the greatest challenge of being a barista is that you can never predict what type of customers you'll face in a day, and how you'll make these customers feel satisfied with their experience.

Coffee shop customers aren't all artistic young people. They can be roughly divided into three categories: ordinary consumers who quietly drink their coffee after ordering - these are angels; picky coffee enthusiasts who criticize things they only half-understand, but as long as you have solid coffee knowledge to engage in dialogue, you can become their "expert"; and special groups with strong personal cultures who think they're superior - you can only feel helpless.

Sometimes, the knowledge you've acquired from constant reading and the skills you've worked hard to practice become useless in front of different customers. Because there are many problems you've never thought of that cannot be solved solely through professional knowledge and technical skills, and there isn't enough time for you to think about how to create the best solution. In this regard, it's already very challenging for a person's emergency response and communication abilities.

Many young people who switched to the coffee industry mention in conversations that after making coffee/opening a coffee shop, their temper becomes increasingly irritable and the pressure grows. Because it's completely different from what they initially imagined, the work becomes very difficult. Indeed, if you only yearn for a life of brewing coffee and latte art, expecting to get through each day peacefully, then reality can give you a heavy blow... Why? Because lemon tea sells best in coffee shops... (This is both a joke and many coffee shops' compromise to society) Some coffee shop owners have mentioned that when customers learned the shop didn't have lemon tea, they would say "What kind of coffee shop doesn't have lemon tea?" and leave... It's that helpless.

A Word of Advice

Whatever job you want to switch to, I hope everyone can calm down and think clearly about what they really want before making a decision, while seriously understanding the true state of a job and your own true state. If your current job offers more development opportunities or better pay, please don't give it up because of temporary fatigue. When you switch careers, you'll find that when you want to go back, it's no longer the same treatment, and there are no more development opportunities.

Currently, many baristas, especially novice baristas, work without purpose. If you really switch to this job without purpose, or thinking it will be easier, or that you can have lots of coffee to drink every day, you really need to think, think, and think again.

All stagnation won't bring you any progress, and will waste a lot of valuable time. Every job has its own difficulties, and no job is truly comfortable. Life is still very long, and if you really want to become a coffee industry professional, being a barista won't be the only option, and opening a coffee shop isn't the ultimate path out for baristas... You can't just escape 996 to embrace 007!

The world of coffee is very interesting, and there are many things in the coffee industry waiting for everyone to discover and develop. If it's truly what you love, I hope everyone can persevere and make decisions you won't regret~

Image source: Internet

Important Notice :

前街咖啡 FrontStreet Coffee has moved to new addredd:

FrontStreet Coffee Address: 315,Donghua East Road,GuangZhou

Tel:020 38364473