Responsibilities eh? Re:..."Coffee companie,s in melbourne need to get behind their cafe,s more and their barista training and stop just selling their products like its some sort of compliment to their umbrellas and sugar sticks..." "Their" barista training....? Hmm. Sounds a trifle one sided to me and you know what they say...it takes two to tango. I wonder if it might not be too much to ask for cafe owners and their managers themselves to take some responsibility for what they serve up? Is it the cheese companies fault, or the margerine companies fault, or the sprout growers fault if the cheese foccacia is inedible? Have you ever thought there might be many cafe owners / managers / staff who simply will not accept advice from their coffee suppliers about how best to treat their product because they reckon they know best? Have you thought it might soon be possible for coffee companies to instigate legal proceedings against cafes that sabotage the coffee companies good name in the way their blends are destroyed and served up in branded cups for all to see? Have you thought that large coffee companies themselves are guilty, not in the coffee education stakes, but in setting up a marketing scenario where they "train" cafe owners to demand the best "deal" they can squeeze in items you mentioned such as umbrellas and sugar sticks, not to mention wind barriers, uniforms, heaters, awnings, branded cups etc etc etc, so they select their supplier not on whether they will get good support or not, but on which company will deliver their demands? If a cafe owner selects his supplier on the basis of demands and freebies, dont you think it's only just a small token to expect him/her to actually know how to run their own business properly? Do you expect the bloke who hangs the shingle over his door and it reads "MD", to actually know something about doctoring? The day it becomes the sole responsibility of a coffee roasting company to look over every espresso machine operators shoulder is the day these coffee companies will start demanding a share in the profits from the cafes in which "their" espresso machine operators must be working under sub contract. Yes coffee companies may have a lot to answer for in the marketing stakes, but in the case of coffee education it is THE REPONSIBILITY of all of us, not just the whipping boys you call coffee companies. Wake up Australia, the sign over the door says "CAFE", not coffee roaster. PS apologies to those with delicate stomachs if my reference above to a cheese focaccia may have led some to think they might get sprouts in their next cheese focaccia. I have to admit to being a little foccacia deprived and dont really know much about them so I made that bit up. Also, I would expect that if I was in a really upmarket cafe, that in addition to be able to serve me up a decent coffee OR TEA (please dont make my black tea with boiler water from the espresso machine or I will definitley make a complaint) they might use butter instead of margerine! I like butter, but then again if it's been left a out in the hot kitchen and gone rancid, I better ring the dairy farmer up and make a complaint. Bloody dairy farmers, wont follow their product to the table...
