Barista

"From behind the counter of this provincial train station coffee shop, Joanna was barista and unofficial shrink to wildly varied London-bound travellers," writes author Laline Paull. Confessions of a Barista on Platform 1 was published on February 9 by The Firle Press [...].

I helped out in the business while I was at school—we all did, whether it was washing up or baristaing or clearing the tables for Dad and washing them down when the shop closed—but this one night I was meant to be working a late shift when I had a chance to play in a concert. […] Are you still OK for another half-hour lesson on baristaing, tonight? […] ‘It’s advanced baristaing—an extra,’ he admitted.

Nevertheless, we’ll both be done with barista-ing soon.

We hadn’t exchanged a word since our stupid tiff at TSB—we’d just baristaed side by side in silence, which isn’t easy when your workspace is the size of a broom closet.

If pure chance guided me to glory in the heady world of competitive barista-ing, the rewards came to be measured in frustration.

But it was crappy of me to steal instead of bartending or barista-ing or temping or something.

Barista Boy grins and goes back to barista-ing.

I nodded to Mary, where she was working the frothing machine like she’d been barista-ing for much longer than a month.