Thoughts on the Life of a Barista

L'Ariel café

Tim's blog assignment: "Alright, first assignment, grab a cup of coffee in a cafe and tell me about the barista. Speculate on the sort of life you think they may or may not lead." Tim's a barista himself, so this is a fitting assignment hehe.

Ok I wrote this in my journal originally, and just transcribed it online, so don’t think of me typing online at a tiny table, writing gives a much more classic image hehe.

Thursday January 21, 2010
I’m in a café right now on the corner of Rue de la Glacière and Rue de Tolbiac and Place Coluche in the 13ième arrondissement in a café called L’Ariel. My friends Antonia and Jordan have emphasized that I get to know my neighborhood, so I’m fulfilling this blog mission in a local joint on my corner. I’m gonna go into the whole experience of it more than just my ideas about the barista so you can get more of the feel of being here.
Let me start by saying I really like this place and I’m glad it’s so close to my house. It’s adorable! Great decoration and stuff, and the neighborhood seems pretty tight with the place. Right when I came in, this guy was waiting for an older barista to finish with customers and gave him a big hug and had a quick chat. There’s a group of like 4 construction workers perched on stools at the table behind me having beers, hehe they look like birds on a wire cuz they’re big and the stools are pretty small.
I sat at a tall table, and tried to get the attention of one guy with a gesture and a “monsieur!” but he pointed me to the grey-haired worker behind the bar. Apparently the tall tables are his domain, so I got my seat settled and he said “bonjour” and I asked for my “café, s’il vous plaît”
It’s Europe of course, so he put a tiny cup of espresso on the bar and I hopped up to get it. In Portugal, Margaret got me into putting sugar in my espresso. I used to never use sugar because it never came out right, always to fakely sweet. Unless Otis made the coffee and put the cream and sugar in for himself – the man’s a genius with coffee. Ah, I miss them. I’d like to be on the porch right now for a breath of the morning air while he has a cigarette, sipping off his hot coffee to warm up from the cold snowy air. It’s only like 9:30am there hehe.
Ah well, I’ve had my time at that life. New experiences await. This is pretty exciting, I’m in a new place with a new language everywhere and new people everywhere! It was starting to get old, knowing someone everywhere I went in Urbana. It kinda hits me sometimes that there really is just French everywhere. I wake up in the morning and I hear girls talking in French. I walk down the street and kids rattle away in French. I walk past a construction site and guys holler at me in French. A lot of people I meet remind me of American friends I’ve had, except this is the French version. It’s the same in a lot of ways, just in a different language hehe.

Ok, back to my coffee. So I’m debating putting sugar in it, but all they gave me was this little brick of it, and the espresso cup is about twice the size of the sugar, so I really don’t want to put the whole thing in. I spent a minute with the little stirring spoon trying to break off some of the brick, but when I almost toppled the whole cup and saucer I decided to stop. I finally realized I should dip the brick in so some would melt away, and when I did that half the brick fell out of the wrapper into the cup. Turns out it was cut in 2 all along, so I got a pretty perfect amount of sugar. Now I’ve been writing so long it’s starting to get cold, ok, no more of this mundane stuff of my thoughts, let’s get to the topic at hand.
The question now is which barista to talk about. The first young guy I tried to hail down, the older bar-worker who gave me the coffee, a more heavyset guy who seems to do dishes and ring people up, or the guy working at the tobacco counter.
The 2 I talked to both seem really nice. I think the younger guy (about my age) is the son of the heavyset dishwasher guy cuz they’re having a conversation now and I can see that next to each other they look identical. I wonder whether the younger guy is in school. Definitely older than high school and he seems really on his shit and knowledgeable at the café, so maybe he just works here full time. Probably not a bad life, he seems pleased. Everyone working here actually seems pretty pleased. They have a great system of working in sync.
The neighborhood really seems to respect them too. I think that’s a difference between the states and here. What would be a “menial labor” type of job in the states can be a life career and not be a bad thing here. At least I’d like it, I did really like being a barista though, and who wouldn’t wanna live in Paris! On top of it I think they get much better government/medical benefits from any job in France.
The dad worker just came out with his coat on and helmet in hand. I think he’s saying bye to the son and probably some other parentey advice. He’s putting his helmet on, I wonder what kind of bike he’s got, it’d be cool to have a moped around here, but probably a bit dangerous. Ok, the sun is starting to set, it’s about 5pm, and I’ve finished my coffee. I think I’ll pay and go now. European coffee prices are great: only 1,20