Coffee: Good and fast.

Coffee, without a doubt is the drug of addiction of choice for most people in Australia – I suggest that 90% of the Australian population drinks more coffee than beer or wine (90% of all statistics are made up), so its not surprising that the busiest time for serving coffee is a dash before start of business after most people have just reached the office after being caffeine deprived for at least one hour.

The humble coffee shop Barista therefore becomes a critical cog in getting people to work on time and alert enough find their way back to the coffee shop at morning tea. Given this, you may be surprised to hear that not all Baristas are created equal – I was reminded of this fact this morning.

I’ve been working out of Sydney for the later half of this week, and on the way to the client offices I stop off at the coffee shop (Voodoo Coffee) at the bottom of their building. I walk in, place my order at the counter then stand at the end of the counter ready to catch it as it flys of the production line. Its fast good coffee, in Canberra I can often get good coffee, but it seldom comes fast.

My theory is that there are two measures that matter when it comes to getting coffee, speed and quality and that quality ranks highest. Unfortunately I think that the distribution of those qualities amongst the Barista population looks something like this: