This week I was able to check off a bucket list item – have a coffee master class.

Thanks to Taylor St. Baristas I was able to spend a day learning about coffee – from sourcing, to roasting, to brewing. The level of detail covered was incredible and this was in the short version of weeks and months’ worth of training!

It really isn’t truly appreciated how much of a science and an art coffee as a topic is. What stood out for me the most was the attention to detail given at every single stage of the process – in specialty coffee at least.

How is a barista tested?

They’re given a bag of beans, access to a machine they’ve never used, potentially a water supply they’ve never used and a set amount of time to pull the perfect espresso shot. Sounds easy, right?

Grind the coffee, tamp, place into the espresso machine and press the button. If it’s not quite perfect then that’s just the tester being picky? Well I thought similarly, until I tasted an almost perfect shot compared to perfection, the difference was clear.

This test is extremely impressive due to the level of detail that it requires. If the shot isn’t quite right then perhaps the grind size needs altering, but that will then impact on extraction percentage and time needed to extract, but that can influence the end weight… the implications of the smallest of changes are endless – change one thing and something else needs to change. It is the ability to consider all these small details and work them out under pressure that qualifies a high level barista and it is that ability that stands out as a lesson that can be learnt and applied in different environments.

A barista will care about the parts per million (ppm) of the water coming into their machine and will apply filters to make it suits their requirements. The process of heating the water isn’t simple either, with potentially three stages of heating in just one machine; what temperature to bring each level to is an ongoing investigation.

No detail is too small to be important, if it is a variable they can in some way control, they will!

You might be reading this thinking “I don’t even like coffee”. Even if you don’t, appreciate the scrutiny of the process and think about how you can apply that level of detail to your work – things might not seem important on the surface, but even the smallest of changes can impact the bigger picture.

P.S. I tried my hand at latte art… I’m pretty proud for my first attempt 🙂

I recently travelled to Malaysia as part of my University’s overseas exchange, however I also travelled to begin to build a partnership for sports and societies – yes, that’s right, I went to play badminton!

Here are the 10 things that stood out for me from my 10 days there.

1 – The people are incredible

I was shocked by how friendly, approachable and generally nice the people were. Everyone wanted to know who we were, how we were doing, and what Malaysian food we’d tried!

This made the experience 1000 time better, it was only a short time but they made a real impact and I miss them already.

2 – Malaysian haze isn’t fog!

As soon as we arrived we heard people complaining about ‘the haze’. A few hours after arrival we saw a post on the Facebook account for the university saying all outdoor activities were suspended due to the haze – shame since we wanted to swim!

I remember thinking, what is it with everyone complaining about a bit of fog? It won’t harm anyone… well, it’s not quite fog. Without going into the details, it’s actually the result of mass wood burning in various areas around Malaysia and Indonesia! Click here if you want to know the details.

3 – Badminton halls are everywhere

Within an hour we’d found our first hall – courts marked out in the university’s function room. That evening we played in a hall that was a 5 minute walk from where we stayed, to me it was perfect, to the locals it was the bad hall in the area – “you know there’s a 20 court hall just down the road?!”.

4 – Walking doesn’t exist

It’s fair to say people were shocked when we told them we walked to badminton one evening and that we’d be happy to walk back.

In Malaysia everyone drives! Cars are expensive, and the traffic is bad, but’s it’s what they do!

5 – The place feels very local, until you get inside

I was shocked by how local and un-commercial I first found Kuala Lumpur, yes of course there were many tall buildings, but also many local shops and restaurants. I soon realised all the brand chains were in the many, many shopping centres.

Huge buildings on every street corner, housing brands from all over the world. I saw 3 Nando’s in one day!

6 – Never judge a place by its appearance

The best places we ate were the most obscure; a restaurant attached to a car garage, another place that didn’t even have a sign, but that didn’t matter when you were with locals who knew where to go and what to get!

7 – It’s extremely diverse

Malaysians, Chinese-Malaysians and Indian-Malaysians; these are the three main ethnic groups in Malaysia. However we came across people from all areas; it really has attracted crowds from all over the globe.

8 – Durian is NOT the king of fruits

No matter how many times you’re told to try Durian – the king of fruits – don’t! Not a single person on our trip liked it.

9 – It’s cheap, until you want to drink

If you want a cheap holiday, head to Malaysia, just don’t drink. Food is cheap and amazing but your alcohol is heavily taxed. Although my friend from Norway insisted she still found it to be cheap!

10 – The food is incredible

It is food heaven, half the time I didn’t know what I was eating or what to call it, but it was amazing. As a side note, they have a lot of varieties of ‘chicken and rice’, but the speciality is ‘chicken rice’, it sounds and looks the same but it is its own dish!