I Was a Barista for a Day, and It Changed the Way I Think About Coffee

对于一个困倦的星期六早晨，有些令人愉快的事情辛辛那提，虽然这不是您唯一一次发现城市的Findlay市场如火如荼的赛季，但周六绝对是历史悠久的四分之一掌握的全部潜力，吸引了最多的人，更不用说供应商了。在夏季和收获的几个月中，事物达到顶峰high-quality produce，除了丰富的上光花外，还补充了旧的及其周围的强烈的全年提供覆盖市场。If you have never been to Cincinnati before, I can’t think of a better place to start.

但是，我能做的是想到更好的事情，即使在辛辛那提是星期六，早上5:15起床，即使这恰好是一年中最长的星期六之一。诸如睡眠之类的事情，至少有一会儿，除了今天不适合在市场上闲逛，然后在塔克（Tucker）。今天，我有一份工作要去，在一家咖啡店里工作，我需要在一个多小时的时间内到达那里，以便在他们八点开设商店时接受适当的培训。

经过多年的业余狂热者，在1990年代后期，我当时那个家伙，那些设法获得（二手！）的人之一espresso machines, a compact piece of surprisingly heavy machinery—in brilliant, 1970s burnt orange, no less. This marked the beginning of a career spent convincing various travel and food editors that writing about coffee shops is a legitimate thing, leading up to the last two years, during which I have assigned myself the task of spearheading Food & Wine’sBest Coffee in Every Statesurvey, a project I take quite seriously. After如此公开批评美国的浓缩咖啡技巧，我最近开始怀疑 - 因为我在酒吧里度过了一段时间，所以已经太久了？我放评估他人的咖啡才能的大量精力- 擦拭我的技能（并有可能使自己受到轻度屈辱）似乎是一个好主意，我完全知道这个人要打电话。

我首先遇到了26岁的奥斯汀·法拉利（Austin Ferrari），他的兄弟托尼（Tony）现年32岁，在旧金山出现，当时他们都生活在那儿，经历了矮小但本质上的完美提供者咖啡, just one of many reasons to make the trip up Potrero Hill. During our first meeting, on a sunny and warm February day, we mostly talked about Cincinnati, and their plans to go back and invest in their hometown, which lately had been on the upswing. This wasn’t even two years ago; at this writing, they have opened three businesses in the city, complimenting the two they still own, and co-own, in San Francisco.

There’s the old family barber shop, which has served downtown Cincinnati for generations, now gently updated for the 21st century. There’s a brand new upscale casual, very California (in a good way) restaurant and cafe, a terrific space on the ground level of the Zaha Hadid-designed Contemporary Arts Center, and there’s what I think might actually be one of the best new coffee shops in the country, deep in the heart of Camp Washington, a working-class section of Cincinnati known best for its vintage, 24/7 chili parlor.

这家商店敏感，高雅地从一个结实的辛辛那提房屋之一的一楼雕刻而成Mom 'n 'Em，不仅对古老的地方主义，而且对特蕾莎（Theresa），奥斯汀（Austin）和托尼（Tony）的母亲（退休的老师）的友好点头，您经常会在酒吧后面找到。（CAC的餐厅命名为福斯托, in honor of their father, who you will, from time to time, observe mowing the lawn outside the cafe.)

Mornings at Mom 'n ‘Em, there’s coffee, and excellent pastry, and well-crafted breakfast sandwiches, too. As the day progresses, customers tend to begin eying the well-curated wine wall, and the selection of tinned fishes, along with other nibbles. The Ferrari brothers have created one of the very best all-day cafes I’ve seen, out of a sizable recent crop—unlike too many of the others, it doesn’t try to do everything, but what it does, it does exceptionally well. It also helps that both brothers are well-trained, enthusiastic sommeliers—when they’re not waxing rhapsodic about coffee, you can often find them speaking, very knowledgeably, about wine.

The whole premise for the cafe, the idea, it’s all quite charming, but what really matters is the execution—not only is the space one of the finest in the city, when it comes to coffee, the brothers Ferrari are comfortably among some of the most meticulous in this business. If they ever decide to pack it in, and quit running cafes and restaurants, they could charge a great deal of money for training. Luckily, for now, I have an in. I pull up to the cafe, shortly before Austin arrives,总功率移动，我们直接开始工作。

“I have this theory that the machines need to wake up slowly in the morning, or maybe that’s just me,” says Ferrari, letting off a yawn before flipping on the sleek, monogrammed La Marzocco Strada, which appropriately has been given complete pride of place on the bar. He sets to dialing in the day’s blend, that all-important task that every good coffee shop will see as their first priority, before getting the doors open.

“Dialing in means that you take whatever you’ll be using that day, and try and get it to extract to the correct flavor profile,” Ferrari reminds me, pointing out how this is something that needs to be done each time you introduce a new roast—even if it’s in the middle of service.

还有其他重要因素需要考虑。espresso is an exceptionally temperamental thing, and there are so many ways things can go wrong, beyond the basic laws of grinding (state of the art grinders only work when you know what grind you need) and tamping (it’s controversial) and timing (less tends to be more).

例如，什么时候烤咖啡？每天都会变老，您需要调整使用的数量。咖啡来自哪里？它的最佳属性是什么？今天，辛辛那提较深的根咖啡的法拉利兄弟标签下的定制烤制的房屋混合物是危地马拉五十％的危地马拉洗涤，埃塞俄比亚sidamo自然而然的是尼斯和平衡。

Given the age of the coffee, just a few days, 18 grams was the goal, but when he measures the output from the Mahlkonig K30 Air, it’s closer to 18.5—higher than he wanted, but he doesn’t want to mess with it.

他说：“您越多地打扰咖啡，就越难以使完美的溪流流动 - 如果没有发生，那意味着您有盲点。”

下一个法拉利使用了他所谓的蓝瓶方法，这是他在十几岁的时候首次训练的地方，用圆形运动轻轻刷过顶部。然后，他伸手去拿篡改，他说这是酒吧上最重要的工具之一。（他来自日本，价格约50美元。）垫子上有一个坦克，一个坚固的推动推动，现在是时候让机器完成工作了。

In order to get an accurate reading on the results, he takes a cortado glass (which he calls, betraying his Bay Area training, a Gibraltar glass), weighs it on the scale, and we’re a go for a double shot, ristretto.

“I’ve never pulled a single,” he says. “It’s too light, too watered down. Our shots, I like to pull them like molasses. I like them rich and dense. I like it to look creamier, almost like maple syrup, rather than water.”

然后,7点之前不久,我们的口味。第一个attempt comes out loose, inoffensive, unrealized—I know from experience that Ferrari is just getting warmed up, along with the machines. For the second round, he changes the grind setting—this time, we’ll do it a little finer, and instead of brushing over the top, he employs the shake method—ever so lightly, back and forth—before one tap, and one tamp.

最终结果 - 布莱特（Brighter），但过度劳累 - 34克。他一直希望24岁。他说，这太多了。所以我们又来了。The third shot is thick, rich, with beautiful caramelization, the fourth begins hinting at a beautiful, balanced acidity, and at this point, you wouldn’t even believe they’d all come from the same coffee, if you hadn’t been standing there, watching it all go down.

Finally, on the fifth round, we’re there. This one knocks it out of the park, delivering a sucker punch of that juicy acidity, the kind good baristas chase around like it were the holy grail. The espresso hits your tongue like a bouncing ball, then ricochets around your mouth; the citrus notes a perfect compliment to a summer morning where the humidity is already off the charts, the way it often is down here, along the Ohio River.

“多汁会让你唾液，”法拉利说，进入完整的侍酒师模式。“苦涩的你关闭了。您总是想平衡酸，因此您会感到精神焕发，因此您和客户 - 更多。”

一个小时后，换了工作，我已经想起了很多东西，而且我们甚至还没有拿到牛奶。Luckily, that’s the easy bit—source some good-tasting, quality whole milk, train yourself to steam it correctly (never too long), and do this as you’re pulling your shot, so neither the milk nor the espresso have a chance to deteriorate. Okay, maybe it’s not that simple.

法拉利倒了，毫不费力地创造了我几周来见过的一些最好的拿铁艺术，同时告诉我拿铁艺术是一杯优质咖啡中最不重要的部分之一。因此，我们现在已经完成了早晨的第一个卡布奇诺咖啡。当然，当我成功地将完整的杯子送到咖啡馆的地板上时，团队的努力却交给了法拉利的女友Mekenna，后者只是从旧金山搬到了辛辛那提，我忍不住感觉有些成就。

现在，付费客户正在通过门口，有命令要填写。幸运的是，奥斯丁的母亲特蕾莎（Theresa）和熟练的早餐三明治小姐已经到了。当我们继续在机器上玩耍时，他们正在做繁重的举动。八点后不久，第一次咖啡杯的订单即可到达。多亏了法拉利的彻底教学风格，我再次对自己的浓缩咖啡技巧充满信心，但我不太自信，我想让公众做我的工作。不仅仅是。因此，法拉利（Ferrari）落后于机器，更多地谈论牛奶。

他说：“你可以像那样撕裂牛奶。”他用手指伸出手指，暗示我手里握着实际的投手，所有手指都触摸。“如果您不能触摸它，就烫了牛奶，就烧了糖。如果您的手在燃烧，请想象客户的嘴。”

That terrible noise you hear at too many coffee shops, he says, that sounds something like ripping paper? That’s the milk being ruined. Six or seven seconds, he says, is all you need. And whole milk—he can’t stress that enough. “The less fat you have in the milk, first, you’re living a boring life, but also, it’s like steaming water.”

After the initial rush, there’s time for me to take over the reins entirely—I make my first cappuccino, start to finish, in far too long, remembering my training as best I can, after too little sleep the night before, though all that sampling and sipping has me feeling energetic, if not terribly focused.

研磨。称重。轻敲。夯。拉。蒸汽。倒。我做到了。经过微弱的拿铁艺术尝试后，是时候让法拉利对我的作品进行品尝了。我的多任务技能绝对让我失望，我已经知道了很多。 The ratio of espresso to milk is excellent, says Ferrari, but the espresso has been over-extracted; I’d left it running a full six seconds too long, mostly because I was so concerned about burning my hand on the milk pitcher. (The milk, he says, could have been a little bit hotter, as well. Note to self: Toughen up.)

但是他会喝东西吗？我已经品尝了自己的作品 - 对我来说，这感觉是业余的最大努力，但我不讨厌它，我肯定会喝它。多亏了法拉利的诀窍拨入，并且由于产品非常好，一切都很好。是的，他承认。他很可能会喝这个。当然，随后进行了更多的培训，包括急需的拿铁艺术课程。

但是，那将不得不等待另一天 - 咖啡馆正在如火如荼地进行，朋友，家人，邻居和初学者，涌入大门，都需要咖啡 - 好咖啡。足够拧四处。是时候上班了。