Barista Exchange: ba·ris·ta ex·change n. A program allowing an employed barisa of one café to spend a day working at a different café, in exchange the following week the host café will send a barista to work at their guest barista’s café. This program was established in 2007 in order to promote a non-competitive barista culture.

The Barista Exchange is a terrific program for Baristi and Cafes alike to make friends with different breeds of high-quality artisan coffee makers. Both exchange Baristi and host Cafes enjoy the shared benefit of learning a great deal from each other in their respectively new and awesome environments. The goal of the Barista exchange is not unlike the goal of a student exchange program between two countries, only this crazy event is condensed into two six-hour bar shifts over a period of one week! For the duration of the guest barista's shift at the amazingly accomodating host cafe, the two parties can do the diplomatic Barista Dance, collectively incorporating techniques to raise the bar in their respective regional coffee communities. Imagine the craziest of love affairs; wonderful friends plus some of the best coffee in an event that will surely garner well-deserved attention around the coffee scene.

Now, doesn't that sound like fun for your Cafe?

Thank You Elaine

September 17th, 2007

I want to thank Elaine for helping me create all the content for Barista Exchange. We will be having the first exchange soon… More to come.

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Scared Yet?

August 6th, 2007

There hopefully will be something great coming out of this project soon. Something for the barista. What comes of this site will be for us, not for the roasters, not for the sales people, not for the owners. This is for the love of the ‘Spro and La Mano behind it.

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