Joel ist seit Kurzem Teil unseres Teams. Er arbeitet schon seit vielen Jahren in der Specialty Coffee - insgesamt hat er schon über 12 Jahre Erfahrung als Barista. Seit 5 Jahren ist er als Trainer tätig. Lerne Joel kennen und lies das 2 min Interview.
Icebreaker Question: Do you believe apples are the potatoes of the fruit world?
Potatoes
How long have you been living in Berlin?
5.5 years
Where are you from?
Bradford, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom
Describe your job (at 19grams) in one sentence.
It’s my 3rd week here. It'd be difficult to sum it up in 1 sentence as everything is still coming together. But I’d definitely say it’s refreshing and has a good balance of professionalism and fun.
Latte Art or Latte Macchiato?
Latte Art
What’s your favourite part about the Specialty Coffee industry?
The Coffee
Is there a fact about Specialty Coffee that is super important to you?
It comes from such far away places from where I am from.
Are you a filter or espresso kinda guy/gal?
Filter, I find it’s a much easier experience that I can drink all day, every day. I find espressos definitely have their place, but I can’t drink as many cups of espresso as I can filter coffee.
How did you start in Specialty Coffee?
I started working at Costa Coffee 12 years ago with some friends from school and we all became entranced with producing better latte art together. After a couple of years working there I started visiting some specialty cafes in the nearby city. I was first rating their latte art skills but quickly started to taste the difference between the quality of the coffee. From then on I knew I wanted to work in this cafe which had introduced me to the experience of interesting flavours, not only found in coffee but also the food they were making.
What is your favourite brewing method?
V60 is my favourite hand brewing method, but I love batch brewing filter machines. I usually need somewhere around a few litres of coffee a day to really bring me back to a semi-operative state of mind.
What’s been your biggest revelation about the coffee industry since you started working in it?
That you don’t need tattoos to be a barista anymore.
Where did you get your skills from? Did you teach yourself everything?
I’ve always been happy to ask questions and learn from others, I find it very exciting when someone is sharing knowledge they have about anything with me as I’m genuinely interested in learning more about the world around me.
There is also a massive dusting of self learning going on alongside what I have learnt over the years through dedication, hard work and always wanting to do more.
Do you have a preferred coffee origin? Is there one country that you drink a lot of coffee from?
I enjoy all coffee, from your darkly roasted robusta from an italian bistro to your one of a kind coffee species that only 5 people get to try in the world. But if I were to really make a choice, It would be
El Salvador, I love washed, Red Bourbons that are grown very well and processed very cleanly. I find well grown bourbons and pacamaras from El Salvador are just such great, simple, sweet, clean, delicious, well-structured, easy and pleasurable coffees.
On average how many cups of coffee do you drink in a day?
On Average I’d say 6 - 8. However, there are some days when I am measuring my coffee consumption in litres and this could be around 2 litres some days.
Which is your favourite 19grams coffee at the moment?
Kenya, Gakuyuni AA. It’s so delicious, low yet crisp acidity, super clear flavours.
Have you ever been to Origin? If so, what was your favourite country?
If not, where would be first on your list?
I’ve been to Costa Rica and El Salvador. Both countries are amazing. I visited more of Costa Rica. I’d love to visit Colombia as there is such a diversity of other fruits growing in this country that I’d love to try alongside the amazing coffee.
What should we have asked you?
This is pretty thorough
What’s your personal Espresso recipe?
Lungo, brew ratio of 1 to 2.4
Did you ever think about re-inventing a brewing method?
I think you can’t really reinvent the wheel.