John McCain loves coffee. When he and his campaign entourage swung through Springfield, Missouri, on Wednesday, it was no surprise that the Republican presidential candidate asked for a cup. He was speaking on the campus of Missouri State University, where there are two Kaldi's Coffee Kiosks. Our gal Ashley, who manages the Kaldi's Coffeehouse on Battlefield Road and helps oversee the campus kiosks, set about fulfilling the Senator's request. Caterers placed a nice carafe of Kaldi's coffee in front of McCain, which fueled him throughout his campaign stop.

When he was on The Late Show in April, he made sure Letterman's coffee mug was within reach. Later that month, McCain campaigned in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, and enjoyed a cortadito, a classic Cuban espresso with frothed milk and sugar.

McCain's been drinking coffee for a long time. Here he was drinking it in 1974. That's no cup of tea. Look how intelligent he looks: There's coffee in that cup, for certain.

A lot of working folks look forward to Fridays as a day to ditch the pantyhose or neckties, wear casual clothes, maybe grab a long coffee break on the outside. Not Kaldi's Baristas. Their workaday life is the opposite of the Company Man's. You can go ahead and speculate what the Kaldi's Baristas do with stockings and ties, but be assured they never wear them to work. Nor do they break for coffee. They must drink it ritually, on the job, with purpose. And this Friday, June 27, they will participate in a long, hard day of espresso drills. Kaldi's Baristas will all be attending "Let It Flow: Learning to Love and Prepare Espresso," an inter-company workshop conducted by our own espresso trainers, roasters and competitors at our warehouse. The goal is to perfect the espresso shots that our baristas pull for customers everyday. One of the niftiest training tools we use is the naked portafilter, pictured here. It's a great way to see the espresso during extraction, to visually evaluate it. But naked shots aren't the only things Kaldi's Baristas will pull. They'll delve into espresso roasting, tasting and evaluation. They'll learn the insides of an espresso machine. They'll cup lots of espresso. In the end, they will learn how to pull the best shots of espresso for customers. We're obsessive about continual improvement. Even if that means that Fridays for our folks are a hard grind.