Filed under: Uncategorized — canadianbarista @ 8:56 am
The World Barista Championships were originally designed to teach habits that work in the real world cafe situations. For the most part, the skills reinforced are still relevant.
Cleaning as you work, is one of these important skills. The best way to accomplish this is to have dedicated cloths for different purposes, which is what judges look for in.. “proper use of cloths”
The most important cloth is your steam wand cloth. This cloth is to clean the steam wand only, and should be kept in one place, so you won’t use it to clean anything else. The steamwand is the last thing to touch your drink, and wiping it with a cloth used to wipe the floor isn’t a good idea.
There should be a seperate slightly damp cloth to ” dry/clean filter basket”, this cloth should not be used to wipe the counter. A good place for this cloth is on your apron belt.
You should also have another cloth to wipe the counter.
Some baristas keep a cloth on the drip tray just to clean the drip tray.
Others have another cloth that sits on the counter simply to wipe drips on cups, and to dab the bottom of the cups, before they go on the saucer.
Another great tool to keeping the table top clean is a brush, to brush loose grounds into your knockbox, or garbage can. The wider the brush, the more real estate you can cover in one sweep.
If you can incorporate cleaning during your routine, especially during the times you are just waiting around for your shots to finish, this is a great way to utilize your time and score high points for cleanliness at the finish.
If you finish with time to spare, you can really polish up the machine for extra points.