Coffee-making at the UDC.: JP/Tifa Asrianti

Like a regular coffee lover, Nanny Soeharto will normally make herself a cup of cappuccino to start the day. When asked which coffee she liked to make, her answer was espresso.

“It’s a lot easier to prepare,” Nanny said.

According to Nanny, who runs a coffee shop, an espresso shot is easy to make. It could be served from 30 milliliters mix of ground coffee beans and hot water.

And now thanks to the newly-acquired coffee-making skills he got from Università del Caffè dell’Indonesia (UDC), not only does she know how to make espresso, she also knows how to make macchiatos, cappuccinos and lattes.

Although it is called a university, it is only a classroom where people can learn how to brew coffee. It is a franchise of
a similar “university” in Italy that uses coffee beans and coffee-making devices from Illy.

Similar course is also available in São Paulo, Shanghai, Seoul, London and Paris. Each year, nearly 13,000 people attend such courses around the world. Its Jakarta’s branch, on Jl. Hasyim Ashari in Central Jakarta, opened last month.

The courses are designed for baristas and coffee lovers who are keen to have more knowledge about coffee culture. There are two types of courses at UDC: Espresso Expert and Creative Coffee. Each course only lasts two days.

The Espresso Expert course focuses on serving coffee, from selecting beans to making the final product. Besides learning theory, participants could learn how to make a perfect cup of espresso or cappuccino.

The Creative Coffee course gives participants a chance to invent their own coffee mixes. It’s more practice than theory.

Michael Gibbons, the head of UDC, said that although classes were opened in October, the school accepted student in in June, July and September. By October this year, the school already had 14 students.

“We have people flying in to Jakarta from other parts of Indonesia, such as Medan and Bali, just to enroll in the course,” Gibbons said.

Gibbons said lessons wrap up quickly and it won’t take long for students to make quality coffee. He took a volunteer from the crowd and guided her on how to make a latte. Within minutes, the volunteer was able to make rosetta-styled latte.

“If this lady can learn how to make latte in few minutes, imagine what you can learn in two days. You can invent your own creations once you know the basics,” he said.

Nanny is one of the university’s first students. Once, she asked a barista at a cafe about the coffee bean for her cappuccino. She learned that it was Illy beans. An internet search led her to UDC.

“I wanted to improve my knowledge on coffee, so I took the course. The university taught me almost everything I needed to know, from how to make a hot coffee to iced coffee,” she said.

The most difficult thing she learned at UDC was how to prepare the foam on espresso. The taste of the coffee depends on the thickness of the foam.

With her skill in coffee-making, Nanny is ready to pass on her knowledge to friends. “I opened a small coffee shop last month, and I have passed my knowledge to my staff,” she said.

Nanny’s coffee shop, named Srikandi can be found on the fifth floor of Blok M Square shopping mall in South Jakarta. The menu includes coffee, other beverages as well as pastry and fish cake siomay.

To attract new customers, she has special promotion on Mondays where people can get a cup of freshly brewed coffee between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. while waiting for snack orders.

“I’ve been drinking coffee since I was a little girl because my mother is a coffee junkie. It’s fun to learn how to brew and enjoy coffee. I want to share my passion with other people through my cafe. I also plan to teach my daughter about coffee making,” she said.

Another UDC alumnus is Bina Nusantara University (Binus) lecturer Shandy Suhendi. He found out about the UDC when he was researching the coffee beans used in one of his Binus classes.

After corresponding with the university via email, he decided to take UDC’s courses last June. As a lecturer at Binus’ school of tourism, he wanted to learn how to prepare quality coffee.

“I learned a lot from UDC, such as how to explore the taste of coffee and how to create perfect foam for the espresso. I passed that knowledge onto my students,” he said.

Shandy thought the creative coffee course was very interesting as it allowed students to create their own coffee drinks.

“Each coffee mix has its own standard ingredients. But we can modify them to create our own signature coffee mix. That’s the fun part. I wish the course could have more days, instead of just two days,” said Shandy, whose interest in coffee began when he worked for a restaurant several years ago.

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