Barista training, part 1

The Peter Larsen factory

I have been on a small visit to the danish coffee roaster firm, Peter Larsens kaffee, which is the oldest coffee company with over 100 years of coffee roasting experience. The firm was founded in 1902 by Peter Larsen, who at that time were a local businessman from Viborg, Denmark. The coffee roasting firm is selling its products mainly to the detail business, were they keep a commercial grinder in each supermarket, so the consumer can grind the roasted coffee beans fresh in the store.

I have been in contact with the firm to assist as a Barista in events like festivals and such - example Roskilde festival and therefore were supposed to take a friday out of the calendar to get a full Barista training. This blog post will describe a little of how it went down.

Expobar Diamant espresso machine with two brew groups

Vi first off went through some practical things regarding the firms mission, vision and other boring stuff - before we came for the real intriguing coffee learning-by-doing session. There were a little espresso machine set up in the practice room - a Expobar Diamant, shown in the picture above. This beautiful two group espresso machine could produce some excellent espresso shot and very consistent dry steam for frothing milk, as shown in the Barista training, part 2.

The purchased green coffee beans ready for roasting

We were also shown around the roasting factory and above is their storage of green beans - imported from all parts of the world. This firm is only producing blends, but is roasting blends from premium coffee beans - meaning they buy some of the most expensive beans and mix it with others. This will provide a blend were you have underlined the best from each bought bean.

Each type of coffee bean was stored in its own silo and when time for roasting mixed with the other chosen coffee beans into a large chamber. The beans mixed in this chamber were sucked into their giant roaster, who could roast 250 kilos at a time! At the end of the roasting cycle, the beans were put into a cooling tray were they were sprayed with cold water.

Packing the coffee product

When the beans was done roasting it was sent to the product packaging department - where the whole beans was sealed in co2 valve bags, like shown in the picture above.

Next blog post - Barista training, part 2 - will focus on the hands on Barista training, which we received.

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// Hendrup