A Morning Meeting

Today, I headed to a neighboring Target store for a Starbucks meeting, but unlike typical business meetings, when we sat down at the giant table and our shiny, beautiful materials were handed out we knew this meeting would be interesting. There was a coffee press with rich, thick coffee brewing, tasting cups, bags of coffee, and "passports".

The materials we were given had pages filled with beautiful pictures, great training overviews, and we started with tasting three different coffees. When the DM started pouring the tiny cups of rich, black coffee I thought to myself: "I don't love coffee to begin with, and I'm going to have to taste this stuff black!!"

I learned how to "slurp" coffee today, and I will admit I laughed out loud when our DM demonstrated it, but it was fun to hear everyone slurping away. It truly effects the way the coffee tastes! She took us on an Around the World tasting:

Surprisingly, the coffee tasting was fascinating, from the Latin American Organic Shade Grown Mexico coffee, which was smooth, nutty, and crisp, to the full, bold roast sweet finish of the multi-region Cafe Estima Blend, to the big and bold Asia/Pacific Komodo Dragon Blend coffee, which was one heck of a "BIG cup of coffee", as our DM put it. (I won't pretend that I didn't gulp water after we were done though.)

We thumbed through the training, going over the heart and soul of Starbucks, their goals and visions, and watched an inspiring video of how they are helping parts of the world through their fair trade coffee.

We each received our own coffee passport; how fun is that?! It takes you through each coffee and is separated by regions of the world. We also received a Green Apron Book, which has the cutest, most inspiring quotes throughout it. We discussed experience, environment, passion, and commitment.

We had a lot of fun and we laughed over the slurping and some of the faces we made. Or when the coffee was described as "earthy" and when the DM stepped away, the individual clarified that she meant it tasted "earthy...like mud". We managed to control our laughter before the DM came back in :)

As we piled up our papers, put away our binders, and dumped out the remaining coffee, the DM said we had one more activity before we were done. We were going to learn to "pull espresso shots" and "steam milk" properly.

I like how it sounds to say, "pull shots"; it just sounds fun. We learned the in's and out's of espresso, the reason why we only pull double shots (the machine is calibrated for double shots, not single shots to ensure the highest quality, and about 15-17 seconds means a perfect shot of rich caramelly goodness), and how to calibrate the actual machine.

When she steamed the milk she described the perfect steam sounding like "ripping pieces of paper". I never thought I would TASTE milk, but I tasted perfectly steamed milk, and was amazed at how velvety, rich, and creamy it was. Then she improperly steamed milk, which sounded like an airplane taking off, smelled like burnt popcorn, and tasted like flat warm dishwater, yuck. From 140 degrees to 165 degrees is the ideal temperature and if done right, creates yummy airy foam and makes you wish for snuggly blankets and a pillow to rest your head on.

I had a great day with not to be soon forgotten laughs and a great appreciation for the company I work for. Training is always at the top of our priorities, meetings are meant to better our teams. . . and I have to say we always have fun doing it!