Nearly seven years ago I (Jonathan) worked for two different local cafes in Southern Oregon and had some incredibly privileged coffee training experiences. My first coffee training opened my eyes to a new world as roaster, cafe owner, coffee expert and former professor, Jared Rennie from Noble Coffee, spent time with me and a few others teaching us the intricacies of coffee making. Fast forward to later leaving my first coffee job due to not being scheduled since it became a women's boutique, I found myself sitting in a brand new cafe learning from Tom Pikaart, now with Roseline Coffee in Portland, about coffee extraction, micro-foaming science, technical cleaning procedures, workflow, flavor profiles and more. I am incredibly grateful to have received this coffee training from my former employers for I discovered in myself a passion and joy to coach coffee preparing. After roasting for a year and one more barista job, I was finishing earning my degree in Portland when my mother-in-law paid for me to attend The American Barista Coffee School. It was the first investment I have received towards my eventual coffee business and soon afterwards I was interning with ABCS where my coffee training became more developed.
Three years later, after launching Middleford Coffee and training 5 new coffee team members, I find myself still itching to share this craft with others. For my Christmas gift this year, my friends and incredible wife helped me put together our first ever Middleford Coffee Cupping Workshop. For two hours we dove deep into the coffee world submerging ourselves in the dark brew as we talked about coffee’s history, tasted and cupped three different delicious coffees, learned coffee extraction and espresso making, as well as microfoaming milk and basic latte art pouring. I think we all wanted the workshop to last another two hours, but after wrapping up I was floored by the feedback: “Sign me up again!, I am going to bring my friends next time” and “My experience was above and beyond expectations… was well informed and I had a great time.” Grinning ear to ear we let our newly trained baristas go as we promised more future workshops.
I hope you’ll join us as well for our next workshop in the Spring. Keep in touch and thank you for subscribing to our Blog, we will continue releasing more content, development of our business, coffee information, stories and more.