Description

Barista Essentials

One day. Zero experience required. Job-ready by the end of it.

Barista Essentials is a hands-on, one-day course built around a single question: what does a café owner actually need you to be able to do on day one? You’ll spend the day on professional equipment making real drinks at a real bar, and by the end of the course you will be able to walk into an interview, get on a machine, and pull a proper espresso and texture a cappuccino without hesitating.

Who it’s for

Complete beginners looking for their first barista job, career changers, Transition Year students, café staff who were put on the machine without ever being trained, and home enthusiasts who want to do it properly.

No experience required, and no age limit; anyone from 15 to 100+. We start from the very beginning.

What you’ll learn

• Coffee fundamentals: origin, roasting, freshness, and enough context to answer customer questions with confidence.
• The equipment: espresso machines, grinders, accessories, and how to set it all up and spot when something’s wrong.
• Espresso: dose, yield, time and grind. Dialling in from scratch, tasting the difference, and correcting it. The one skill that separates a barista from someone pressing a button.
• Milk texturing: consistent glossy microfoam, temperature control, and perfect pouring techniques.
• The full menu: espresso, ristretto, macchiato, americano, cortado, flat white, cappuccino, latte, mocha, hot chocolate.
• Latte art foundations: you’ll pour your first heart on this course, plus an introduction to tulips and rosettas.
• Cleaning and maintenance: backflushing, group heads, steam wand hygiene, grinder cleaning, chemical safety and full opening and closing procedures.
• Working the bar: order sequencing, workflow, pacing and working clean under pressure.

Small groups, machines and grinders for hands-on practice throughout, and very little time spent looking at slides.

Your certificate

Everyone who completes the day receives a Certificate of Completion, the document that tells an employer you’ve been properly trained rather than self-taught, and for most of our students, the key to their first barista job.

If you decide to build a career in coffee, we offer a wide variety of courses, all delivered here at Ireland’s only SCA Premier Campus.