Art and Matilda Green from The Bachelor New Zealand talk about their home barista journey
Art and Matilda Green are living the fairy tale. They met on the Bachelor NZ, got married and are now living outside of Auckland in Warkworth with their two children. Something you may not know about Art and Matty is that they love their caffeine fix and recently brought the café home when they added a Linea Mini to their kitchen.
If you follow Art and Matty on Instagram, you can catch some of their candid moments as they continue on their home barista journey.
Here’s what Art had to say about his La Marzocco Home experience.
What has your journey with La Marzocco Home been like so far?
It’s been really cool. I came into the showroom and was guided through the range and found the coffee machine and grinder that best suited our lifestyle. I went with a white Linea Mini and decided to get the wood kit components. I was given a full run-down of how to make coffee on this machine as I had zero experience. Now we make amazing coffee at home, and don’t feel the need to buy takeaway coffees anymore!
What was your favourite aspect of the process?
My favourite aspect of the process was probably unboxing the machine and placing it in our kitchen. It’s such a beautiful machine, and it was just so exciting starting our La Marzocco coffee journey!
Describe your journey as a home barista. How have you evolved?
Before getting our Linea Mini the only coffee I knew how to make was a plunger and a stove top/percolator; so, in terms of barista skills, I had to learn from scratch. The guys at La Marzocco taught me the ins-and-outs of how to brew great coffee and steam perfect milk, so I then went about experimenting on my machine at home. I’m now at the point where I feel competent enough to start experimenting with different beans and other variables to really expand my coffee exploration. Matty was a barista in her local cafe when she was a teenager, so she felt pretty confident, but she was really surprised how much actually goes in to making a genuinely great cup of coffee, and how little she actually knew about coffee in general.
How was the coffee training at the La Marzocco Showroom?
The training was fascinating, as there is so much more involved than we expected! Ari was wonderful at breaking everything down for us and was very kind and patient. We’ve been having a lot of fun practicing the perfect steamed milk at home.
What is something surprising that you learned about coffee after your home barista training? One that that really surprised me was how the freshness of the beans makes such a difference. I always thought a coffee bean is a coffee bean, but understanding how to look after our beans and how it affects the coffee was really interesting.
What would you say is the best part if owning a La Marzocco Linea Mini at home?
Having friends and family over and blowing their socks off with our coffees!!! It’s always a really fun talking point too, when people see us weighing out our coffee beans and timing our shots.
Any advice for other home baristas just starting out on their coffee journeys?
Have fun with it! Your coffee won’t be perfect straight away, but half the fun is seeing improvements and expanding your knowledge about what goes into a good coffee.
Would you say your understanding of coffee has changed since you purchased your Linea Mini?
Without a doubt! We thought we knew a bit about coffee, but it turns out we were actually novices. It’s been a really fun journey learning this new skill.
What has owning a great home espresso machine meant for your friends and family? We suddenly have more visitors on weekend mornings! We seem to have come to an unofficial agreement whereby they bring the croissants, and we supply the coffees. It works very well for us.
