We proceed our dialog from the ‘One on One’ function in Barista Mag’s present factor with veteran espresso professional Selina Viguera, café chief at Blue Bottle Espresso’s Abbot Kinney location in Los Angeles.
BY CHRIS RYAN
BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE
Pictures courtesy of Selina Viguera
Within the present factor of Barista Mag, we take a seat down with Selina Viguera, café chief at Blue Bottle Espresso’s Abbot Kinney café in Los Angeles. Selina is an excellent espresso skilled, with a management genre within the café devoted to lifting up her co-workers, and an extended resume of volunteer reviews that comes with virtually a decade working the Barista Guild’s annual pop-up espresso store on the Uniqueness Espresso Expo.
Take a look at the present interview with Selina, then revel in a bit of extra from our interview that we didn’t have area for within the print article, together with Selina’s contemporary enjoy with Blue Bottle Studio, her ideas at the barista career, and extra.
Barista Mag: Are you able to communicate a bit of about why you’re keen on being a barista?
Selina Viguera: I’ve a large number of satisfaction and to find a large number of pleasure in operating on bar; I believe what assists in keeping me within the café area is understanding the duty we need to proceed to attach other folks with espresso, and training/function modeling that with my workforce. All the way through my occupation I’ve met a large number of espresso manufacturers, they usually frequently tension how vital the barista’s function is within the business. Even supposing the barista function could be very a lot observed as an entry-level activity, it’s much more than giving alternate and making beverages. I believe that a part of my unconscious undertaking is to get other folks to revel in being a barista, show pride of their craft, proportion the enjoyment of connecting with visitors via hospitality, and fasten other folks with specialty-coffee reviews.
As a café chief, the primary focal point of my function is on other folks/construction, and I to find a large number of objective in what I do—I make an affect on everybody round me, on a daily basis. I’ve this neighborhood that I’ve been construction for the previous 9 and a part years at Abbot Kinney, and on a regular basis I are available in to paintings, my workforce and visitors are at all times excited to look me, and it’s this kind of beautiful technique to get started my day. There’s a large number of selection in my day by day: a pair hours on bar, caring for trade, one-on-ones, schooling, or post-shift conferences. This isn’t an place of work activity the place I dread coming in to paintings, sitting by myself in a stall, typing away on a keyboard, and now not interacting with anyone. I’m the most productive model of myself when I’m at paintings. <3
Within the fall of 2023, Blue Bottle introduced Blue Bottle Studio, an omakase-style espresso tasting from founder James Freeman to creatively exhibit coffees. Are you able to speak about your involvement in that have?
I used to be picked to be the café chief for Blue Bottle Studio LA, and what was once particular concerning the Studio enjoy for me was once being tasked with bringing James’ thought of a “pinnacle Blue Bottle enjoy“ to lifestyles—which was once each an honor but in addition a terrifying duty :). We auditioned interior workforce contributors and decided on six baristas for Studio, part of whom I used to be assembly for the primary time. We had every week of coaching and a 2nd week for mock provider. Studio was once designed to be the complete opposite of a café enjoy, the place individuals are out and in. We did 3 seatings of 8 in keeping with day, and 60-90 mins to proportion coffees in a different means, connecting visitors to an enjoy relatively than simply quite a lot of espresso arrangements.
With the function of ”discovering the straightforward fact in the back of espresso, water, and filtration,” James and Ben (Ben Brewer, our head of innovation) put in combination a drink menu following this idea. For the primary route we served 3 teas constructed from the portions of the espresso plant that in most cases get discarded—two teas constructed from the espresso leaf and the espresso flower, and a different espresso cherry ferment we did with a proprietary herbal espresso yeast (from Nestle). The second one route was once a soluble espresso from Yemen, the place we had been in a position to spotlight the sentiment that simply because one thing is “quick“ doesn’t imply it may’t be “strong point.“ The 3rd route was once a espresso flight that informed a tale: a espresso from Yemen, the oldest coffee-growing area, and a espresso from California, one of the most latest; we additionally had a different espresso from Panama—recognized for popularizing the Gesha selection—that was once processed in a novel means (a proprietary processing way known as “interstellar”). It was once actually a laugh to discuss the tale in the back of the choice of those 3 coffees, whilst serving them in a novel, virtually meditative means. For the Brief Cup and Au Lait classes, we brewed a extremely concentrated espresso the use of a Nel Drip, historically observed in kissaten tradition in Japan and in most cases with darker-roasted coffees; at Studio we would have liked to spotlight a small lot, lighter roasted Colombia Wush Wush—intense, however attention-grabbing!
You grew up in part within the Philippines and feature spoken about how significant it’s to you that Blue Bottle now gives espresso from the rustic. There also are extra Asian flavors appearing up within the U.S. meals and occasional scenes; what do you call to mind that development, and do you apply it in L.A.?
It’s been a laugh to look the ingenious techniques other folks were fusing espresso flavors in conjunction with those substances to make actually a laugh, fascinating drinks. I’m now not a large cold-brew drinker, however Kindness & Mischief a pair years in the past made a chilly brew with pandan whipped cream, and I used to be so obsessive about it. That was once the primary time I most certainly ever drank a complete bloodless brew all of the means right down to the ultimate drop, and it was once as a result of how scrumptious the pandan was once within the whipped cream! There’s a nostalgia that includes seeing those flavors transform extra popularized—coconut, ube, pandan, and many others. Individually, I revel in consuming natural espresso—pourovers are my beverage of selection—as a result of my delight in espresso has to do with the exploration of all of the other flavors espresso has to provide. With that mentioned, espresso is this kind of private enjoy and is loved through many in such a lot of other ways, so it’s nice that those flavors are turning into extra mainstream and will make espresso extra approachable to everybody.
After all, such a lot of your id is focused round management in espresso, however what do you love to do outdoor of labor?
To be fair, because the pandemic I’ve been very work- and home-focused, and feature been seeking to escape of that cycle. I like basketball and I like tennis, and so even if I’m seeking to get a hold of a exercise regimen and concentrate on my well being, I’m actually spotting that the easiest way for me to do it’s to move out and play. The older I’m getting, the extra I’m spotting the wish to unplug and revel in quiet time, or concentrate to podcasts and concentrate on self-improvement.
I’m additionally seeking to be higher about spending time with my 11-year-old mini schnauzer, Rocky. I’d love to get my passport renewed so I will get started touring once more—I like Japan!—and omit my mother and the Philippines. So recently my frame of mind is solely actually seeking to admire lifestyles.
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