Milk Foam Dicks and Cupping: What I Learned at Coffee School

I drink so much coffee I gave myself anaemia.

That's right. Over the last ten years I drank enough of the crow-black stuff to give myself a genuine blood condition. And it was entirely worth it. Because coffee is engine oil of greatness and it makes us feel like Vikings.

According to the British Coffee Association, about 70 million cups of coffee are slurped down every day in the UK. But I imagine at least 50 percent of those taste like the dirty wet end of a hoover bag—burnt beans, stale grinds, too much milk, and all served at just the right temperature to simulate phlegm. This is why speciality companies like Harris + Hoole are grabbing the great British coffee-drinking public by the beans and teaching us a thing or two about how to make a decent jug of java.

I spent the day at the Harris + Hoole training centre, tucked behind the cranes and warehouses of South East London, to learn—among other things—how to"cup", to sniff, to slurp, and to make a really nice-looking dick out of milk foam.

Now, obviously, good coffee is worth a bit of effort. But it's hard, especially when you're staring into the face of a grown man—the kind of man wearing a watch that costs as much as your entire bedroom—as he explains, in total seriousness, his 11-step programme to the perfect latte; when he tells you that every member of staff undergoes a four-day intensive training programme; as he proudly compares timings from the "Hoole-ympics" and UK Barista championships and talks gravely about how many substandard cups of coffee get swooshed down to the Hades of London's sewers in the pursuit of his holy grail.

I mean, sure, I like a cup of rocket fuel as much as the next guy. And I really would prefer if it wasn't made by emptying the hot water tap over a sneeze of instant coffee, followed by 20 seconds in the microwave with half a cup of sour cream. As I looked out over the shining, 1959 Cadillac Eldorado of a coffee machine, the bags of freshly harvested beans, the Breaking Bad-like weighing scales and digital thermometers, I wondered if we're not just getting a little anxious over here? But for today, I was a coffee disciple. I was here to learn.

Sniffing the bean "Quality coffee can only be served by baristas meticulously trained on high quality equipment with speciality grade coffee," says Andrew Tolley, Co-Founder of Harris + Hoole and Head Judge at the UK Barista Championships. Which meant it was time for us to stand around three cups of coffee grains, ranging in colour, weft, and strength from from 'I've-accidentally-spilled-my-tobacco-across-the-bottom-of-my-handbag' to 'a-pinch-of-middle-aged-pubis.' We then held each cup under our flanges and inhaled like teenagers in a bus stop, to compare flavour.

Cupping This, I was sad to learn, basically meant slurping a small amount of black coffee off a round spoon and saying what it tasted like. I once genuinely cupped a man wearing a gold lion head belt buckle in a club in Leeds, to try and ward him off groping my friends, so was all ready for a repeat performance. But no dice. Anyway, as I pretty much obliterated my sense of taste six months ago with a pavement-denting blow to the brain, I wasn't much use at this section. Apart from when I said that one of the cups (the freshest and most high-calibre beans, it turned out) tasted like meat. The cheap supermarket coffee tasted like chalk. And the one in the middle—your average high-street Americano—tasted a bit like coffee, and a little like being late.

Odd man out Do you think you could taste the difference between caffeinated and decaffeinated? I thought I could. Ever since my mother hit the menopause at 40 and started drinking fish-flavoured decaf tea, I've always prided myself on my ability to spot the real deal at 50 paces. So, when the training team lined up groups of three cups—two caffeinated, one decaf—and asked us to spot the difference I was quietly confident. Which turned, very quickly, into being loudly disappointed. Then silently furious, as I missed pretty much every one.

Ride the machine I've never worked in a coffee shop. As a student and teenager I made my money by selling XL tourist sweatshirts to Malboro-smoking French teenagers and sweating American tourists. I'm a retail girl, at heart; all clothes folding, no cups. So, the only other time I've ever wrestled with a proper espresso machine was when I forgot to fill up the water at my aunt's house and managed to break $1,000 dollars of coffee machinery while trying to whip up a latte for the mayor of Rotorua. I can't say I was confident.

The grind "Get a nice mound in the centre of your basket," said the man training me, his long nostrils flaring, his elasticated jeans crinkling at the knee. I genuinely went to check my flies, before realising he meant the little pile of coffee grains through which I was about to pass a jet of steaming water. Apparently, this has to be nice and even and smooth—knock it or crack it and all the water will just pour straight through the seam, rather than filtering through the grains, and your coffee will taste like thin, watery dog breath.

The pain threshold To foam your milk at the right temperature, you have to work out how hot you can make a metal jug before pulling your hand away like an adolescent girl playing knuckles on a French campsite against a gang of stubbled waiters. I managed about 37 degrees, which is piss-poor, and surprising, seeing as my father used to pull out my wobbly teeth with a pair of pliers. I also once tried to sew my own foot back together after jumping on a rusty nail. Still, warm fluffy milk is warm fluffy milk—I'm not going to let my nerve endings ruin a good topping.

Latte art I've always believed that anyone who has the time to turn your cup of coffee into a trompe l'oeil rendition of a maple leaf probably doesn't appreciate the finite nature of time. They've never had to eat a bagel while changing gear. They don't have to choose between having a wee and catching a train. They have morning baths. And yet, here I was, swirling a thin stream of thick warm milk on to a cup of coffee, trying desperately to form a heart, as a woman with curves like the Venus of Willendorf told me to "tip the base." I can't say this is the first time that my heart has proved meaner, smaller, less impressive, and a less inviting prospect than the others around me and it certainly won't be the last.

But, hey, at least someone showed me how to make a dick out of milk foam.