Barista?

The other day I asked some guy what he did for a living, and he replied, "I'm a barista." I starred at him blankly for about 7 seconds and then proceeded to ask him what the hell a barista was. He seemed sort of offended that I had never heard of his profession, but a barista is a person that mans the coffee machine at a coffee shop. Up till now I would have expected someone with that profession to answer my question by telling me that they worked at a coffee shop. Not here. Apparently up in the north west and especially around Seattle coffee is so important that people have invented a word to describe working in a coffee shop.