Serving up a champion espresso is exactly Tereen Aata's cup of tea, correction, coffee. First, her training in hospitality with the Australia-Pacific Technical College led to her winning a coveted Gold Medal at the Origin Culinary Arts Show in Port Vila, Vanuatu, where Kiribati-born Tereen did her training.

Next, her expertise really paid off when she was appointed to impart the art of good coffee-making to learner-baristas - coffee-bar staff - at the Maritime Training Centre in Kiribati. It's an important job, because it's helping Kiribati students gain the credentials and experience that will get them good jobs in the fast-expanding international world of coffee-drinking. The centre provides training for young i-Kiribati men and women to gain employment as stewards on cruise liners and container ships around the world.

"My studies have opened up a world of favourable job options for me, and they'll be open for the graduates I train too," says Tereen, who, with all-round culinary expertise, also helps out in the kitchen at the Marine Training Centre. She is an active member of the Kiribati APTC Alumni chapter and recently attended a function at the Kiribati Institute of Technology to welcome staff and management from the APTC in Fiji.

At the moment Tereen is broadening her international training experience in Montenegro, where she is on a 6 week attachment with seven other instructors from the Kiribati Maritime Training Centre. She will spend part of her time at the Azalea Maritime Centre studying First Aid and the rest of her attachment at a 5 star hotel in Montenegro.

From student to trainer, it's quite a way to come for someone who admits that before enrolling at the APTC she had never even tasted espresso coffee.