Zhengnan Yi on the road to becoming Master Barista

23rd July 2007

During the recent Beijing coffee exhibition, SCAE member and coffee bar owner Zhengnan Yi completed both the SCAE Basic Barista and Barista certifications (Levels 1 and 2).

Mr Yi, one of the quality coffee pioneers in China, became interested in coffee ten years ago, and soon after, opened his own coffee bar—Feeling4Seasons Café—in his native Chengdu, in Sichuan province. He now has six full time employees.

For a number of years he has been involved as well in the computer business, so his English was perfect, and he did all the SCAE Barista tests in English. Mr Yi has studied coffee on the Internet, and has an impressive accumulated coffee knowledge, well ahead of most of his European colleagues.

He now aims to achieve the SCAE Master Barista title and has already started his programme, aiming to do his presentation in the summer next year.—Alf Kramer

(Photo shows Alf Kramer conferring the SCAE’s Basic Barista and Barista certifications on Zhengnan Yi)