Ask The Pros Search (36)
A Clean Machine - The Secret to Coffee Excellence
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The essence of the coffee that we enjoy comes from natural oils that are largely responsible for coffee's aroma and flavor. Just as we enjoy the elegant sophistication of this natural oil, if it is left to accumulate on coffee or espresso equipment, coffee oil will have a negative impact on...
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Caffeinated Ideas for a Sluggish Economy
Getting through these tough times is on everyone's mind right now. We've been talking with a lot of our customers to come up with a list of ideas that might help you get ahead this year.
Create your own stimulus package--sell prepaid drink coupons (buy 10 get 1 free) Be careful! You are creating a future liability by doing this (you owe the...
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"Should you be doing that?" - Understanding the value of your time
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As an owner or manager of a specialty coffee business, you are faced daily with almost unlimited choices of what to do with your time. There are a lot of chores involved with running any business - run to the bank, take out the trash, wait on a customer. All these things are important to a...
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Should You Serve Smoothies? What Are Your Options?
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It’s clear… Americans love smoothies. Lately, these sweet blended beverages have been especially popular, with an 80% increase over the past five years. With our population’s ongoing quest for great tasting, drinkable snacks plus a general interest in health, experts say...
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Opening A New Café: Design It Right, Build It Once
Opening a new café can be a real challenge, especially if you have never done it before. Many of the problems that a new café owner encounters occur during the two months between signing a lease and getting a building permit. See article “Opening your dream café – don’t let it become a nightmare!” In...
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What's Big in Smallwares?
Have you taken a close look around your shop lately? Are things looking a cluttered, outdated, or even a little damaged? You can give your space an affordable face lift by investing in an often overlooked category--smallwares. Smallwares encompasses everything from condiment bar organizers and mugs to tampers and steaming pitchers. They are the...
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Water's Role in Great Beverages
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Water - it's everywhere: in the oceans, in the puddles, coming out of the skies as rain and snow. It comes out of our taps and plays a very important role in our beverages. But what is water?
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines water as follows:
wa•ter (wôtr, wtr) The...
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Iced Coffee & Iced Tea
Iced Tea
We're always surprised at Barista Pro Shop that our customers don't sell more Iced Tea than they do. Why? We're not sure, but we're going to take some of the blame for this one. We haven't provided as much information and support in the past to help our customers sell more Iced Tea, but this article is a first step to changing that. Most...
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Want to Make Your Own Chocolate Syrup?
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A unique mocha is a wonderful drink and, as the most popular flavored beverage served in a cafe, becomes something of a signature beverage.
For those do-it-yourself mocha makers, I would say that it's good to consider the following:
Consistency is the hallmark of any successful cafe, so...
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Serving Food in your Café
Should you serve food in your coffee house?
Most coffee house owners recognize that serving some food in their coffee house is beneficial to their bottom line. The question for most is "To what extent should we serve food?" We hope to help you answer that question with some observations we've made over the past 14 years of working with...
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Opening your dream café - don’t let it become a nightmare!
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Opening a café or coffee shop can be a very challenging process. Every week, I talk to people who have just signed the lease and are very excited to get their café open as soon as possible. Over the last ten years in the café design business, I have heard the good, the bad...
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Building Your Iced Tea Program
Fast, profitable and delicious: those are my first thoughts about iced tea programs for cafes. At a cost of about $.10/serving, iced teas produce some of the highest profit margins for a café. So why do I find many cafes aren’t implementing a consistent iced tea program?
The most common barrier I’ve heard described by cafes is...
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Five Months in Fifteen Minutes: a Ton of Preparation for an Ounce of Performance Part 2
This is it. Eleven days before I leave on the final leg of my six month journey to Siren Studios, Hollywood, CA. I'm not going to lie, I'm a little nervous. The other competitors aren't so scary. Although there are some big names to compete alongside, I'm competing against myself. I want to compete to the best of my ability. As the old adage goes,...
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What Do You Need? - Tips for Stocking a New Café
Opening a new coffee shop or café can be a daunting venture, you must first find an ideal location that’s within your budget, remodel the space to meet your needs, and then you’re faced with the overwhelming task of creating a checklist for stocking that new store. From the vast number of brands available to the breadth of...
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Raising the Bar - The Soda Bar: The Art of Handcrafted Sodas
Soda has been a staple of Western culture for three centuries, and a significant part of American life since the late 1800s. A huge portion of wholesome pop culture in the 1950s literally sits in the middle of soda fountains. However, over the last fifteen years, soda sales have trended downwards for several reasons, health being the most...
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Fruit Smoothies
Fruit Smoothies are: Fruit based or fruit flavored blended frozen drinks. Fruit Smoothies may or may not contain dairy products such as milk or ice cream. Fruit Smoothies may be made from scratch (and might include fruit juice, frozen fruit, frozen yogurt or ice cream and nutritional supplements). Fruit smoothies may also be made from powdered...
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Fun With Frappes
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Blended iced coffees, frappes, frozen coffee, or whatever name you choose for those popular blended drinks are a natural product for the premium independent coffeehouse. Any drink on the menu that can be served hot, can also be served frozen and blended. If your customers love a certain hot...
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Totally Instagrammable
How to Create and Capture Picture Perfect Specialty Beverages
As a millennial in my mid-thirties, I remember when Facebook was just an informal network for college students. At the time, “social media” was merely a place for Myspace musings and covert searches to find out more about a crush. However, jump forward to today, social...
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Holiday Recipes
If you haven't started serving up holiday inspired specialty drinks, now is the time to start! It's not just fun to offer something different; it keeps your loyal customers intrigued and coming back to check out what's new. Make your shop a haven from the hustle and bustle. Create tastes of the season and moments to sit back and enjoy!
The...
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Mocha to the Max - Sweet Ground Chocolate Powder vs. Sauce
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A large percentage of coffee consumption is now comprised of Mochas, Lattes and Cappuccinos. Considering that these specialty coffee drinks are made up of primarily milk and flavorings, its ironic that most café owners will take the time to choose a quality coffee, but will often not...
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Barista Competitions – Advice for New Competitors
Greg was the Winner of the 2009 Mountain Regional Barista Competition and is a photographer (http://www.greglefcourt.com) as well.
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The butterflies are inevitable. Everyone gets them. You're super excited and nervous as heck, but you're ready. This is the moment you've been preparing for....
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Five Months in Fifteen Minutes: a Ton of Preparation for an Ounce of Performance
Part 1 of a Series
December 25, 2010, a great day in the lives of small children and fun loving adults around the world, myself included. A new Capresso Infinity grinder and a black Aerobie Aeropress lay safely nestled under my tree. Visions of sugar plums, fairies, and Kenya Gakayuini dance in the heads coffee geeks everywhere. For many of you,...
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Mochas and More: Welcome the New Year (And Keep Chocoholics Happy!)
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In this era of calorie-consciousness and menu labeling, sometimes your customers desire a warm, creamy indulgence. Besides, for every trend there is a counter-trend. Just like smoothies have a healthy aura and shakes are a nostalgic comfort item, for every sugar free, non fat latte there is...
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Snowed in with Toddy
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Toddy, hot! Why? You have a commercial brewer and an espresso machine. You've got your hot coffee bases covered, right? Well, you also have that Toddy system that usually gets put away as the seasons change; why not make the most of it? Change the way you look at your Toddy, and don't let it...
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Flavors of the Season
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Everyone has their expectations when it comes to what flavors they want to enjoy during the holiday season. Pumpkin Pie Lattes, Peppermint Mochas & Egg Nog Lattes are what customers have come to expect as "standards" at any cafe throughout the holiday season.
I often hear people say...
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Chill Your Menu
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Iced beverages can deliver high profits and attract new customers, so they are an important part of a menu that most people overlook! As the season heats up, be sure you’re considering these menu musts.
Iced Beverages
Extend your day parts – iced beverages light, refreshing...
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Latte Art 101
The Origination of Latte Art:
Latte art first became popular in the late 80’s in American coffee shops. Many baristas pioneered and spentyears perfecting what we would consider a simple design today. After mastering foundational pours like the heart and rosetta, skilled baristas began combining them to create more complex designs. Once you...
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Do you cold brew?
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The secret ingredient.
Cold brewing is a process that replaces the heat of traditional hot brew methods with time. Instead of running steaming hot water quickly through coffee grounds, cold brewed coffee is made by steeping coffee grounds in cold water for approximately 12 hours. The result...
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Five Months in Fifteen Minutes Part 3
Have you ever accidently slept in till noon or later and you wake up to realize that suddenly half of your day is gone? That's about the feeling I had after returning from Hollywood, California from competing in the South West Regional Barista Competition. All of a sudden it is the middle of March and I realized my final semester of college is half...
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Milk Matters
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Ask a coffee shop owner about milk and you're bound to hear that they never knew they were going into the dairy business when they opened a café. After coffee, milk might just be the most used ingredient in a coffee shop. Even if a customer orders a drip/brewed coffee or an espresso,...
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5 Caffeine Misconceptions Debunked for National Caffeine Awareness Month
March is National Caffeine Awareness month. To celebrate, we chatted with Eliot Jordan, Tea Master and President of Tea at Mighty Leaf, about 5 common caffeine misconceptions and what’s really true when it comes to what we know (or think we know) about caffeine.
Misconception 1: Tea has more caffeine than coffeeThere’s a reason this...
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Flavor Basics
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Flavored syrups are more than just sugar water; they can add a unique touch to your shop and serve as an easy add-on for a variety of drinks. Flavored syrups have become a staple and a must have on the coffee house scene with their ease of use and endless possibilities. Did you say Blood...
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A Bit About Maté
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Serving Maté - In addition to being good for you, maté offers a high profitability margin, a unique way to diversify your menu, and is a great way to help the environment.
Legend has it that the Goddess of the Moon and the Goddess of the Cloud came to Earth and were threatened...
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Spicing Up Sales with Chai!
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From the silky froth of the steamed milk on top to the gently wafting aroma of the exotic spices, chai has become the de facto alternative to coffee and a great way to transport your customers on an exotic journey of flavor. Nothing spices up a coffee shop like chai tea and although chai has...
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Going Organic
Coffee shops are leading the charge by meeting the demands of their conscience and customer requests by going organic. The organics industry is booming - here are some tips to get you started.
There's a movement sweeping the nation, the globe. What may have started as an idealistic approach to food and eating existing only in isolated...
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The Five Things You Need to Craft a Perfect Signature Drink
Tips, tricks and surefire ways to incorporate signature drinks into your menu that your baristas will enjoy making and your customers will order again and again!
Elaborate coffee orders still remind me of that scene from You’ve Got Mail. Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) observes that an indecisive person must make several choices to order a...
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