00:00China Yunnan pour over on the bar. I'm Lucy Fink. I'm a video producer at
00:04Refinery29 but every so often I like to try other people's jobs. Today I'm at the
00:09La Cologne Hudson Square location in New York City and I'm gonna see if I have
00:13what it takes to be a barista. This is Lucy for Hire. My name's Josie and I'm
00:19the director of education and culture for La Cologne coffee roasters. The most
00:23challenging part of this job is probably maintaining a high standard and keeping
00:29things consistent while performing in very high volumes. I think Lucy's got a
00:35lot of experience and a lot of different industries and I figure that she'll pick
00:40up on this fairly quickly but see what we can do. Your first challenge is coffee
00:45school. So if I was just a trainee that came in here and you just went learn how
00:51can I digest this in ten minutes? I can't. Point me to the important pages.
00:59See this? Mind your grind. Mind your grind. I am a little bit nervous because I'm
01:04handed this manual and it's written by Josie and I'm trying to cram all this
01:08information into my brain but it's a lot to take in. So what's the proper ratio of
01:15coffee to water if we're gonna prepare a pour-over? 16 grams of coffee to 32 grams of water.
01:22Oh no. A 1 to 16 ratio. One gram of coffee to 16 grams of water. And as it turned
01:30out I learned nothing.
01:32Am I even ready for the next step here? Can anyone really be? Okay. But you gotta
01:38gotta take a leap sometime right? Right. Should we just do the pour-over and we'll see how I do
01:42on that?
01:42Sure. Okay. This is a single-origin Guatemala from La Hermosa. It's gonna be delightful. So we
01:50have 25 grams of coffee. 25. Oh that's beautiful. Yeah. Times 16. Now that'll tell us how much water
01:59we need in relation to our dose right? 400 grams. The brain of Lucy. 400 G's. It's time to set
02:09the timer
02:10for 2 minutes and 30 seconds and let it brew. So we're gonna start pouring slowly in little circles
02:16right? Uh-huh. And then once we have our slurry I'm just gonna pour kind of harder in the middle
02:22and then all this time I'm looking at my numbers down here because I want to stop at 400 remember?
02:27And then we pull it. Ooh. So dangerously close. Oh my god. 3, 2, 1. All right.
02:37So now our timer's gone off. We grab this and we do a little wiggle and then we're just gonna
02:42set
02:42this on here. Whoa. Then it was my turn to do it myself.
02:51Mmm. Pour them into the wet filter. 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Starts. Now.
03:00And now pour a little harder but right in the middle. So you want to tilt harder. Nice.
03:04I feel like I'm getting the technique. My hand is swirling in a circle. I'm wetting all the grounds.
03:09It's trickling. It's trickling. And the best part of all of this is that after we have a cup of
03:15coffee,
03:16Josie, Josie and I taste the coffee. And there's a special technique for tasting the coffee.
03:26He basically said you want the coffee to just spray all over your mouth.
03:31This is a great cup of coffee. Yeah, I'm into that.
03:33I'd say you may have bested this challenge if it were a challenge. Yeah.
03:38The second challenge will be dialing an espresso. Our recipe for this is going to be 16 grams of coffee
03:45approximately. Turned into 32 milliliters of espresso in a matter of 20 to 22 seconds.
03:54First, he bangs out the portafilter from the previous brew. Then he takes a rag, rinses it out.
03:59It has to be very clean before he places it beneath the actual espresso machine to let the grounds
04:05trickle in. That machine is programmed to let out a specific number of grams of grounds. As soon as
04:12that's in there, he just taps it gently to even it out. And then he places it down on the
04:16rubber pad
04:16and takes the temp and pushes it down. But there's a lot of wrist action that you have to be
04:24careful of
04:24here. He goes back to the espresso machine. He presses the on button just to sort of clean it out.
04:30And then
04:30he snaps the portafilter onto the machine. And as soon as it's on, he just presses go. We take the
04:36espresso
04:37out and we taste it and it is rich. Fruity. It's almost like coffee comes from a fruit or something.
04:48It's almost like it does. Then I'm up. I take it out from the grinder and then I tap it
04:54out to make
04:55it even. And then my first temp is completely uneven. Yeah, it's totally uneven. Let's do it again.
05:01I temp it. We look at it. And then I go over to the espresso machine. I snap it in
05:06and press go.
05:10Oh my gosh, I'm totally missing the cup. Oh no. And the espresso is just pouring out of the wrong
05:17hole, missing the cup completely. Yeah, you want to really get it up in there. Oh my gosh. Third time's
05:23the charm. I do the whole thing one more time and I'm pretty proud of it. Tasted very rich and
05:27dark
05:28and creamy and Josie seemed to like it too. Wow. Deep. Deep, right? Rich. Yes. But I did a good
05:38job.
05:38You did a great job. My first espresso that wasn't from a Nespresso machine. Um, you did a fantastic job.
05:43Yeah. Your third challenge will be steaming and pouring milk. There's only really one way in which
05:48to get good at steaming milk and that's by doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it
05:52and doing it.
05:54Do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got it. Like for a long time. All right, so we fill the pitcher up
05:58about to the bottom
05:59of the lip. First we'll clear it out. We'll put it at a 45 degree angle, okay? We're going to
06:05tilt the pitcher
06:05so that the tip's kind of just sneaking out, right? And then we'll crank it up. You hear that sound?
06:12Yeah. You want to hear that for a couple seconds before you fully emerge the wand just to heat the
06:17milk.
06:18And then... Ah! Are you okay? The milk fountain. This is properly steamed milk. Latte art. Everybody wants
06:25to do latte art, right? Mm-hmm. But you've got to start somewhere. Come down into the drink
06:32and then cut through it. And then you've got a little heart. That looks really easy enough. Right? But it's
06:39not.
06:39Okay. Right to the lip. Right to the lip. Now these shots are going to be done before you're done
06:44steaming.
06:44And we're okay with that. And we're okay with that. Now you want to tilt the pitcher so you see
06:48the tip
06:48peek out just a little. And then you want to crank it up. Now you want to hear that sound
06:55for a couple
06:57seconds before fully submerging it. Now feel how it goes. Nice. You want to keep your flow rate the same
07:06the whole time. Okay? Okay. Now tilt the cup. But come down in. Now tilt the cup more. Now go
07:15through.
07:16Oh my god almighty! There's my first latte! It's Doddism. It's an abstract piece. Really screams my name.
07:28Sweet and frothy. Final challenge is serve someone a drink. You look good. I think I'm ready to go into
07:35the
07:35wild. I think so too. Let's try it out. See you at the bar. Follow me. Okay. And now I
07:41am about to go
07:42out onto the floor to work behind the bar. I'm a little nervous. I'm going to do my best and
07:47I will
07:48see you behind the bar. We're making someone's drink! Nice! All right. Let it go. One minute. Place it.
08:01Nice. Nice. All right. We got to hustle Lucy. Hustle. We're getting in the weeds. We are.
08:07Oat cap. All right. Keep some shots coming. We're going to work together. Almond latte. Double espresso.
08:15You're killing it. You're killing it Lucy. Killing it. While it's slow. Latte time!
08:23A cortado to stay at a what to go. Pour harder. Get down into the cup. Tilt the cup. Pour
08:30harder.
08:30Tilt the cup. Pick up and go through. Oh! That's nice. The seedling. Latte. Enjoy.
08:41Woo! All right. All right. Thanks for being the best teacher. Thanks for being the best student. I will
08:47be back and I'll be behind the bar. I can't wait. Bring the effervescence. Was I hired?
08:53Six more weeks of training? Yeah. Six more weeks of training. Okay. See you there.
