Myths, warm cups - good barista

Sometimes I hear people say that when you get your espresso in a warm cup then you know that the barista is knowing what they're doing. That's a strange saying, I think, because it has nothing to do with the qualities of the beans, the quality of the equipment or the skill of the barista. It could mean that they come straight out of the dish washer. It could mean that the cups are store on top of the espresso machine and therefore gets warmed up. It could mean that the barista pours hot water into the cup to heat it up. I guess it's the last factor that has created the saying.

If the barista goes through the extra work of warming up your cup for you he or she is taking care of you as a customer and it's also something easy to notice and compare whether it's done or not. It is of course nice to be taken care of as a customer and I for one would argue that the customer experience is an important part of the total experience of going to the coffee shop but it doesn't say anything about the coffee in itself.

I would actually rather have the barista not warming the cup because espresso is usually quite hot when it pours out of the machine and if the cup is at room temperature the espresso cools down more in the cup. That brings it to a better temperature both for tasting and for downing a quick one and going on with whatever you were doing (sitting down to have a drip coffee maybe).

So in the end I prefer the barista spending the energy on the coffee itself or maybe remembering how I want my espresso if I'm a regular customer or something similar.