Barista artists strive for the perfect cup of coffee

"I tell him, 'OK, load up a single or load up a double,' and he comes here and does it. It's good," said Liberto, owner of Meshuggah Cafe in University City.

That's odd, because in some coffee circles, "pulling a shot of espresso" (as java jargon goes) is seen as a culinary art, while those who make espresso and espresso drinks have garnered a fancy title: barista.

The barista's image has risen in recent years to where they have celebrity icons (David Shomer); they create signature drinks (espresso amandine); and they routinely charge more for a few ounces of their precious libations than the gasoline station gets for a gallon of premium unleaded (on average, a 16-ounce cafe latte runs $3.50).

Recently, baristas have also begun training for and competing in national and international competitions. Among them: the U.S. Barista Championships, in which Alex McCracken, head barista at St. Louis-based Kaldi's Coffee Roasting Co., placed among the top 25 last month.

"Barista competitions are not to be entered lightly," said Andrew Timko, director of coffee at Kaldi's. "Alex and I started talking about the competition a year ahead of time."

McCracken, who only a year ago was a novice barista and was trained by Timko, performed in front of four judges, creating three drinks for each of them: an espresso, a cappuccino and his signature drink, espresso amandine. The latter combines espresso, freshly toasted almonds, organic milk and muscovado sugar from the East African island of Mauritius.

Two of the judges scored him based on taste and presentation; the other two on cleanliness, his knowledge of the machinery and the consistency of his routine while creating each drink.

McCracken created the espresso amandine in part because he thought toasting the almonds while simultaneously steaming milk and grinding, tamping (pressing ground beans into a filter) and brewing the espresso would give his performance both a culinary feel and a higher level of technical difficulty.

"Just like a chef can take raw ingredients and make something fantastic, a barista can, too," said McCracken, who called from France, where he was vacationing.

Master of the bean

A good cup of espresso, a good barista will tell you, begins with high-quality beans and high-quality equipment.

"After that comes the technique, which has to do with the freshness and fineness of the grind, the tamping of the coffee grinds in the portafilter and then the extraction," said Grind owner Hugo Perez, who recently closed the Central West End coffeehouse but will reopen at another location in that neighborhood this summer. "There's a whole little chain of events that have to coincide for the espresso to be right."

Many coffeehouse owners, especially those who also own coffee bean roasteries, expect their baristas to learn about the varietal coffees from around the world and what types go into espresso blends.

"We teach our baristas all about that so when customers ask about coffee, they know how to answer," said Walt Boyle, owner of Shaw's Coffee Ltd., a coffeehouse and roastery in the Hill neighborhood. "The terms used to describe coffee are as complex as those used to describe wine."

Some baristas talk about "pulling a shot of espresso" as though they are splitting plutonium.

"Coffee is volatile, and you need to understand how to eliminate all the different variables to make it as consistent as possible and then focus on the uniqueness of each coffee," Timko said.

He made a cappuccino one afternoon at Kaldi's headquarters while explaining how the coffee's esters (fragrances) are suspended in the hot water as it filters through the grinds. Howard Lerner, co-owner of Kaldi's, was standing nearby. He said the goal is to bring each and every coffee bean to its full potential.

Using steamed milk, Timko effortlessly created a leaflike design on the creamy head of the espresso. It was pretty, but it was also a sign that the consistency of the espresso and steamed milk was perfect.

Next, he pulled out a glossy wooden box bearing the words Le Nez du Cafe and opened it. Inside were 36 small glass bottles of oil containing aromas ranging from vanilla and tea rose to cucumber and rubber. They help baristas identify the most typical aromas in the world's finest coffees, he said. Sommeliers use a similar tool for identifying aromas in wine.

Choreographer, friend

The job of a barista does not begin and end with brewing coffee.

"The barista is the experiential manager of the cafe," said Lerner of Kaldi's. "The barista needs to choose the music. The barista choreographs the movement behind the bar. The barista chooses the coffee based on the weather. It's theater."

Perez, of the Grind, agrees. To him, the barista is the equivalent of a hairdresser or the neighborhood bartender minus the alcohol.

"(Most of us) don't go to bars every day or to our hairdressers every day, so the barista is someone we see five days a week," Perez said. "On a neighborly social level, I think it's pretty intimate."

Baristas are certain that the taste buds of coffee drinkers everywhere have caught up with their finely tweaked skills.

"Twenty years ago, it was Folgers in a can," McCracken said. "Now, it's microroasted and comes from places around the world. It's all about taste, texture and presentation. If you ordered a cappuccino from someone who didn't know what they were doing and then the next day had one prepared by a good barista, you would definitely taste the difference."

Timko said that much as he hates to admit it, he and others owe a lot to Starbucks for starting the specialty coffee craze because "now people are moving on to the smaller roasters and smaller coffeehouses."

Ken Buckley, a lawyer in St. Louis, was drinking coffee with a friend outside Kaldi's Coffeehouse & Market Bakery in Clayton one afternoon. He extolled the virtues of a good barista as though he or she were painting masterpiece frescoes on the wall of an ancient church.

"These people behind the counter, they are craftspeople," Buckley said. "This is a fine Kona blend. It's not a cup of coffee. You get a cup of coffee at Denny's. This is a fine blend."

His friend, Rabbi John A. Franken of Ladue, said: "What I appreciate in a barista is more the smile they give you in the morning that you don't necessarily get at other places. It's worth as much as the hot cup of coffee they are serving."

Some coffee numbers

Specialty coffee is one of the fastest-growing food-service markets in the world. The number of coffeehouses in the United States has more than quadrupled, to 21,400 in 2005 from 5,000 in 1995. Collectively, they netted an estimated $11.05 billion last year.

Of those coffeehouses, 57 percent are independent, 3 percent are part of microchains and 40 percent are part of chains.