Ozone Coffee Roasters Barista: A Day In The Life

Ozone Coffee Roasters was set up by three passionate coffee drinkers in a small shop in a provincial New Zealand surf town in 1998. Today it’s a well-established specialty coffee roastery committed to all facets of coffee excellence with a cafe and roastery at 11 Leonard St London. Mikey is one of their Baristas.

Mikey says: Normally I get up about half an hour before I need to leave for work. I’m not naturally an early riser so I have to set about 8 alarms. I start work at 7 am so I’ll get up and have a shower, comb my beard, then ride my bike to work. Cycling keeps me fit and it’s a great way to travel, even on rainy days it definitely wakes you up!

I’ve been working in the hospitality industry for over 5 years now and I’ve done loads of different jobs, including managing a bar on a tropical island. I enjoy that every day is different and it’s all quite active. There are stressful moments, but I really like the pace and the challenge. Also, there’s nothing better than that first beer after a hard days work! My favourite part of the job is serving customers, I have a good chat with our regulars and notice when they don’t come in. I went into this  industry because of the people, to do this job you have to enjoy socialising and working hard. I don’t think you could do it without energy and enthusiasm, that’s what drives me to improve. In coffee specifically there are lots of people with new and interesting creative ideas, you can find out about their efforts and achievements in competitions, magazines and on blogs.

I finish work at all sorts of different times of the day, so depending on the time I’ll do various things- like go for a bike ride or check out some other coffee shops or catch up with friends. Living in London is great because there is always so much to do but I really enjoy having friends over at home too. There’s a group of around ten of us who will all get involved in cooking up a massive feast and it’s great fun.

My top 3 online recommendations are:

If you’re interested in latte art and being creative with coffee you definitely need to follow Dhan Tamang – he’s the UK latte art number one (five years running)

There are lots of other inspiring people like Ben Morrow

And if you want to see whats new in the coffee world check out Perfect Daily Grind, an online bog that is written by people in the industry.