In order to promote consumption and boost coffee culture, the Coffee Board of India is launching the “Barista training program”.
The initiative will kick off in July, according to the chairman of the Coffee Board Jawaid Akhtar. Its aim is to train people around the country, especially in tea dominated northern India, to be coffee makers or baristas.
The program will involve a specially crafted syllabus, which will guide aspirants interested in coffee on the various aspects of coffee making.
Trainees will study the different types of coffee seeds, the right temperatures for roasting them, the best ways of grinding, and the right chemistry for a good coffee, says Akhtar who is also Chairman of the International Coffee Council.
Trainees will be taken on a study tour to research centers of the coffee board, its coffee estates and will be given an internship opening at coffee chains. When they graduate from the program the coffee board with certify its trainees as qualified coffee makers, the Coffee Board chief said.
The Indian Coffee Board’s Barista training program will allow aspiring coffee makers to train at its headquarters in Bangalore or the coffee board will depute its staff to conduct group classes in any part of the country, the head of quality control at the coffee board K Basavaraj said.
While the fee for the four-week training program has not been fixed the coffee board claims that it will run the program on a not-for-profit basis aimed purely at skill development and employment generation.
“A similar program in a private institution will cost nothing less than a lakh (one hundred rupees),” a member of the coffee board faculty for the program said.
