in primo piano 4
TRAINING PROJECT:
LA SPAZIALE TRAINS FUTURE BARISTAS

May 16 2016
Over 300 students of Istituto Alberghiero (Hotel Management School) have attended an advanced course on coffee at the training center of La Spaziale.

A full month of coffee training has been dedicated to the young students of the Istituto Alberghiero Bartolomeo Scappi. In Casalecchio di Reno (Bologna), La Spaziale trainers drove over 300 students to the discovery of the product and of the barista profession. The company's passion for Italian espresso stems from the desire to always offer a full service package to their customers. This philosophy does also include investment in education as a key to the success of baristas of today and tomorrow. This new project, designed by Professor Giuseppe Marsiglione, immediately arouse the enthusiasm of the President Maurizio Maccagnani and Franca Cacciari, company owners of the company that manufactures espresso machines, who have thus made the internal training center available for this project.

All second classes of the professional high school and some classes of the 3rd, 4th and 5th year have been involved in the event and have attended the course outlined by the company trainers, Stefania Donato and Alessandro Berselli. With theory and practice, all students were guided to analyze the raw material starting from the plant to green coffee bean processing, up to the classification of the main varieties of Arabica and Robusta. In order to understand the differences, the students were invited to taste and compare a cup of espresso made only with Arabica coffee with one made only of Robusta coffee. For each visual and organoleptic feature of the beverage, the students were given a simple evaluation sheet based on the choice of an emoticon, in a satisfaction rating from disgust to pleasure. The typical training day at La Spaziale school also proposed an introductive module to coffee roasting, with some analysis of themost common practices used in Italy and in other countries. Most of the time was then dedicated to Italian Espresso focusing on the "5 M” (macinacaffé, macchina, manutenzione, miscela, mano that mean grinder, machine, maintenance, blend, hand) for the perfect bar service, on the grinder setting and on the use of the coffee machine to get a correct extraction. The main aspects of the bar service were also explained through practical exercises to test future baristas and make them understand, for instance, how the setting of the grinding point affects so much the result in the cup. The second part of the course was devoted to cappuccino and milk frothing techniques to prepare it in a perfect way. The teachers then showed some milk art decorations on the surface of cappuccino made by the students. Finally, they talked about speed working, the barista's capacity to handle the cafe during peak hours and serve customers with kindness and passion within the proper time.

The training experience received at La Spaziale turned out to be challenging for the different protagonists, both for the espresso experts and for the young students of the Istituto Alberghiero Bartolomeo Scappi who will soon be able to put into practice the acquired notions in the real context of a cafeteria.