Francesco Corona, award winning baristas is good, but Keurig or Nespresso might be better...

by chee Leng (on coffee makers)
(Singapore)

Francesco Corona is the Italian Champion of Coffee in Good spirits and is preparing for the finals of the SCAE, from 22-24 June 2011.

Undergoing a full immersion training in Dalla Corte head office to prepare for the competition. Mentored by great experts of coffee such as Paolo Dalla Corte and Andrej Godina, he is learning everything needed to create a perfect espresso.

According to him, the shift of one degree in temperature can cause the coffee to be excessive bitter or acidic.

Now, this is an award winning baristas, and one that would be able to deliver such an award winning drink. The question is, how many like him is out there in the market?

There is no doubt there would be some good baristas that opens a few high street cafes, but how good are they? And along this line of thought, how good are the baristas in Starbucks, CBTL and most of the coffee chains.

Most of them as we know are part-timers, that are probably given a crash course of how to prepare coffee under an hour.

My $0.02.

I am not saying that machines are better, but hearing from an award winning baristas that the difference of one degree can make a difference in a coffee, would you trust a part-time worker in Starbucks to deliver that?

Even if it hails from a reputable high street cafe, the mood of the baristas changes everyday and you might not get the same quality from it.

The same cannot be said of a machine, for example, a single serve coffee maker. Same consistent quality of coffee everytime, everything pre-measured by the coffee companies to ensure that you get good quality coffee.

This is a piece of article I am sure would be meet with much sneering especially by hard core coffee romanticist.

The difference and inconsistency after all is where the beauty and romance of the coffee is.

But, as someone that is looking for a good coffee everytime, my take is machine does a better job -do you agree?