Coffee School One-on-One Coaching

I was satisfied and made progress. The one suggestion I can make is to elicit all of the questions first and try to tackle everything. Talk less and listen more. Could also follow up about remaining questions rather than necessarily feedback. All in all, I may schedule again, because it was helpful. Hanna was kind and definitely focused in on my questions.

Excellent! We spent some time reviewing my espresso shots and fine tuning the grind size and other facets until it came out just right. Made a huge difference in my espresso!!

Awesome!

Hannah broke things down in a way that was fun and educational. I loved being able to walk through my process and debunk some of the myths to puck prep. Once dialed in, we chatted about espresso theory which helped strengthen what I learned while pulling a shot and ways that you could enhance it. Best of all, she was friendly and passionate about coffee, so I knew I was in the right place. I’ll be back!

The girl was real friendly and had great ideas and suggestions to help me but she didn’t have her video on. That would have helped a lot and made the experience better if I would have been able to see to help, especially with the latte art part!

Sam is great- she helped diagnose the problem with my espresso workflow and taught me about exactly why the issue was occurring (the culprit: old beans!). Sam and I had a follow up chat to verify that the pulls improved. I look forward to scheduling another session with Sam if I ever run into any weird questions. Previously I tried to figure things out alone via the plethora of info on the web, but I found just having a quick chat was way less stressful and more fruitful.

I had a 1 on 1 coaching session with Sam about 2 months ago. She was very knowledgeable and very helpful with dialing in my espresso grind, which I didn't realize was so off. She also helped with pouring techniques for latte art, all while over video. I was pleasantly surprised with how well she was able to identify the issues in my espresso pulls and milk pours to really help make a better cup of coffee. I would highly recommend Sam to anyone looking to perfect their barista skills.

Sam gauged my session perfectly. I wanted to make consistently great cups of coffee. She gave me exact pointers and we worked through them with my grinder, machine and coffee beans to achieve what I wanted. Would totally recommend.

As a new home barista, trying to dial in my espresso has been the most challenging. With this as my focus, Sam was able to walk me through tweaks I could make during our session to work towards a better and more consistent shot. Sam’s ease and style of communication was spot on - effective and calming. For the price, this has been the best investment I have made to date towards becoming a better home barista - highly recommended a session with Sam!

Had a great call with Sam. Went through a bunch of questions and showed her how I do my puck prep. Finally got the advice I needed since I’ve been learning espresso making via tons of YouTube videos and forums. You can’t substitute an expert over your shoulder. Very productive.

Sam is extremely knowledgeable and pinpointed the issue I was having straight away (the beans, to be precise). We discussed all sort of changes to make, and in doing so the coffee I’m making is so much better! I thoroughly recommend.

The session with Sam Pinkerton was incredibly helpful in improving and making more enjoyable my daily espresso routine.

Sam cut through all of the extraneous things I picked up over the years, and helped guide me to reduce the process to the essentials. As a result, not only is my product better tasting and reproducible, it is a more satisfying part of my daily routine. It also gives me a path to further improve on the product, with taste as its most important goal.

The after class notes that I received from Sam, and the ability to re-watch the recorded zoom session, have been extremely helpful in jogging my memory of what we covered.

I could not recommend this course more highly.

I had a fantastic one on one session with Sam. I just purchased a new machine and with her tips I was immediately able to improve my technique with great results. This was well worth and I would recommend this session.

We've been doing espresso / lattes for several years now but recently upgraded our equipment and moved away from a Super-Automatic to a stand-alone grinder and thermoblock machine... Getting the grinder dialed in and the machine tuned to perform optimally was a bigger challenge than we thought. SO, we decided to seek some help. Sam was great at getting us going in the right direction. She was able to give us a deeper understanding of things we thought we already knew, but obviously didn't know enough :) . Patient, knowledgeable, and practical... We appreciated all that she brought to the table and greatly appreciated that this class was NOT in any form a sales pitch, but was purely instructional. She never once told us we needed different or more equipment, just helped us to understand how to use what we already have. Anyone seeking to up their espresso game would be well served by purchasing this class.

I found it really helpful to be able to ask specific questions and hear Sam's perspective. She helped me figure out what I was doing right, what to focus on, and what to ignore. I now feel much more confident in continuing to experiment and tweak variables.

Sam is fantastic at her job and her knowledge was invaluable to me. I could not figure out how to get one good shot and she did it all in 30 minutes. Sam guided me to a great starting point regarding proper grind size and dose. We were able to get a very good shot in our first session. I even purchased a second one! Excellent value for the money and so worth it. Highly recommended!

Amazing service. Sam was very knowledgeable and patient with me. I am so very glad I took this class and I am looking forward to the next one!

I was getting scattered, overthinking everything. These quick 30 minutes helped me pinpoint priorities and focus on fewer, simpler things. I'm having more fun brewing now. I'm very lucky to have access to someone as knowledgeable as Sam, even though we are in different countries (thats great!!). Of course, online espresso lessons have their limitations (ie., Sam can't taste the coffee herself!), but that's ok, I'll keep experimenting and discovering myself, which is what this is all about. Overall great experience, I definitely should have done this before and will do it again, as the process is just easier with help from a pro.

I really enjoyed my session with Sam. I booked the coaching session to get help on how to make my milk frothing creamier as I was having some issues. Sam was an awesome coach and provided lots of tips and was extremely patient. We even had some extra time to chat about a number of other smaller topics which Sam was extremely knowledgeable about and very willing to talk through any questions I had. I cannot recommend these sessions enough, especially as I am still rather new to espresso.

Even though I'm pretty experienced, I was having an issue that I just couldn't figure out. Sam confirmed that I was doing everything right, but she provided some tips to go a bit further. Problem quickly solved. With the extra time I got some lessons in latte art. She knows her stuff. Well. worth it.

I enrolled to this class to develop this special skill set as a hobby. Knowing that a hands on class like Milk steaming and Latte would be challenging virtually. But my experience with my instructor Sam was outstanding. She was patient in every way at the same time, I like that she would really observe my weak points and give me tips or give me other options to improve my pouring skills specifically in Latte Art. I am usually nervous behind a video cam but Sam made our session feel like it was in person . Also she provides resources through email for other informations to help me find what I need that is relevant to the course.

I found the class helpful. I'm a fairly experienced espresso maker although my quality isn't great (including a lot of channeling) so decided to give the course a try. Sam was able to provide some suggestions about how I can tweak my process to improve. She explained things well and also sent a prompt email after summarizing the suggestions, etc.

I too am new to a home espresso machine thought I'd step it up and be more green. It's really a huge learning curve so having someone like Sam there who immediately corrected my "old" coffee problems, my incorrect sized tamper in the first 2 minutes of the session made it worth every penny. I too watched the Clive Coffee YouTubes but having someone you can ask direct questions to as you are in the middle of your espresso pulling or not pulling is ideal. Thank you Sam!

Sam has been immensely helpful. I've read almost every article I can on Clive's website since buying my first home espresso machine, but I was also just making drinks at home by myself with no one to tell me where I might make adjustments. Sam watched me pull shots and provided pointers on what was maybe a bit off or could be tweaked. It was also really helpful to hear her tell me that she too sometimes just gets an "off" shot but the next one works great, so don't make huge adjustments if one goes wrong. She also was able to help me identify a minor mechanical issue with my shot pressure and then send me follow-up information on how to easily remedy it.

She's also been super responsive and helpful with emails and I will definitely email her for clarification if something isn't really sticking in my head from our training session!

Sam was great, she will focus on what is lacking and help you understand immediately with what needs to be done. Also she is prompt in sending a follow-up email and responding to questions after the class via emails!

Working with Sam gave me the opportunity to get specific answers to my espresso questions from a pro.
I definitely gained a greater understanding on how to brew espresso and steam milk, and saw a great improvement to my espresso skills. You can only learn so much from watching YouTube videos. I highly recommend a session with Sam if you are looking to improve your espresso.

I was using great equipment and coffee beans at home, but I was making subpar coffee and feeling overwhelmed with all the reading. Sam diagnosed the problem in the first 2 minutes and spent the remainder of the 30 minute session repeating the techniques until I understood them and answering questions. Sam is a patient and knowledgeable teacher and I’ll be setting up another session soon to work on frothing milk. Thank you, Sam and everyone at Clive Coffee! Great program.