I know this is a place to post good espresso stories, but I thought I post a bad one - no names, no packdrill.
My daughter was invited to a children's party at a soft-play centre in Surrey. Having over-slept I didn't have enough time to prepare my morning shot, but was pleasantly suprised to find a well equiped coffee bar in this soft play area.
A nice 3 group espresso machine, a heavy duty grinder with the hopper just filled minutes after arriving - it all sounded reasonably promising.
Now top tip - when you ask for a "double espresso" and you get a reply "is that a type of tea" (I kid you not) you should run and keep running without looking back.
The "barista" claimed she knew how to make a latte, so I explained that all I required was like a latte, but without any milk. i.e. just a double shot of coffee in the bottom of a small cup!
Her first attempt was to show me 2 spoonfuls of *shudders* instant coffee in the bottom of a mug and ask if that was strong enough. Over 5ks worth of coffee equipment and she uses instant coffee in the lattes - aaaggghhh!
I re-iterated what I wanted and explained all she needed was to put a double dose of freshly ground coffee in a PF, tamp it, then press the double shot button on espresso machine with a suitably sized cup underneath. She nodded and said she would bring it over.
10 mins later I was presented with a mug of watery black coffee. Not an Americano but instead on seeing the small size of a double at the bottom of a mug she continued to run shots through the same grinds until the mug was full!
A little overextracted to say the least! The smell of the cooked coffee was very nauseating.
Luckily she allowed me the other side of the counter for the third attempt, and with direct supervision we were able to get a reasonable tasting drink.
So morale of the story, it doesn't matter how good the setup is, if you don't train the staff properly it's all for nothing!
Anyone else got any horror stories.
Rufus.