Leslie Wolford tastes your coffee before you do, and your daily cup is all the better for it.
Leslie’s journey with Starbucks began in 1991, when she started out as a barista in Downtown Seattle. Back then she worked at our first store to feature an espresso bar, and from there a lifelong fascination grew. Over the decades Leslie has filled many roles for us, from green coffee loader, to roaster, to her current position as senior coffee quality development specialist, where she uses her master tasting skills to help cultivate the Starbucks Reserve® portfolio.
So what's Leslie's daily grind like? In the Cupping Room at the Starbucks Support Center in Seattle, she joins our six other elite tasters to test the quality of the incoming harvest – they've been known to sample up to 600 cups in a single day! The job may sound glamorous, but it can be, well, messy. And loud. Passersby have compared the sound of Leslie's distinctive slurp to a bird's chirp.
