Ever wonder how your coffee gets a great design on top? It certainly helps if the barista is an artist at heart.

Mayela Rodriguez, a recent San Marcos High School graduate and fine arts major, has joined the Twin Cups drive-up frozen yogurt and coffee bar team.

“It’s like producing art here at Twin Cups. Customers get to be creative and pick their own ingredients,” she said. “Creating frozen yogurts and custom coffees on the spot by mixing and matching ingredient selections is like creating a painting. It is fun to see the different colors of fruit blended with the three base yogurt flavors offered — vanilla, tart and chocolate. Then there is the technique of creating the perfect swirl using the one-of-a-kind yogurt machine.”

Rodriguez began her work at Twin Cups before graduating from San Marcos, where she maintained a 4.7 grade point average while serving as lead attorney on the Mock Trial team. But she always tried to make time for her love of art.

Rodriguez recently won the Morris Squire Art Scholarship and the Carey Group Inc. scholarship from the Santa Barbara Scholarship Foundation.

“Working at Twin Cups is not only helping me save for college, it’s also teaching me how to be a barista, which will give me job experience for when I apply for jobs up in Berkeley,” she said.

Rodriguez said her favorite yogurt is the tart-strawberry-banana with granola. She has it for breakfast or a morning snack. She loves to make the specialty coffees, but her favorite drink to make is Twin Cups’ unique Fro Yo Frap. She said her best customer is her little brother, Joey, who goes to Twin Cups after baseball practice for a chocolate shake with whipped cream and a Debbie’s Delights chocolate chip cookie.

Drive up and place an order, or call it in to 805.964.1800.

— Nathan Carey is the owner of Twin Cups.