Copenhagen was not what I expected, in just about every way. I thought I’d get more time to roam the streets, visit cafes and hang out. Somehow it ended up being very busy indeed. That didn’t mean, however, that I missed out on my favourite part of these events - seeing lots of great people. Too many to list, and all of whom I wish I could have hung out with longer and in more relaxed circumstances.

Did I mention Anette and I drove to Copenhagen? No? Well when we got there it didn’t seem like the smartest thing to do. Six countries in a day, 14 hours on the road, and the autobahn actually gets pretty boring pretty quickly (unless, I guess, your car can do 150mph - which our rental could not). It was nice to be able to bring all the competition stuff, spare stuff and lots and lots of our coffee. Seeing as the roastery had only just gone live I have to admit that this being our first real public showing for our espresso was quite terrifying. We had a quick chance to taste it with a few of the Intelli folks at the LM Denmark distributors place. It didn’t taste how we wanted it to and that was a bit stressful, but then it came back to life at the event during Stephen’s first practice time. Then we got quite excited. We got to share a couple of shots with people and the reaction was great - especially what the lovely Barista Magazine folks wrote on their blog about Stephen’s performance.

MCing was interesting. I have to be honest and say I didn’t love MCing on my own, but it was an honour to be on stage with those baristas - even if some of them put me through the emotional ringer whilst I was up there with them. MCing the finals was a great pleasure though. It felt like Carl and I made a good team on stage, and the differences in our styles seemed to compliment each other well. I was pretty relieved to have something to do instead of worrying about Stephen’s set up and water glasses etc. I think Stephen and I were very pleased to have Jenny there to help keep things on track as she did before in Tokyo - so much thanks due to her. On the one day I wasn’t MCing the cupping competition provided the distractions - I was very pleased to get 5th. I don’t think I could have expected more, and Casper was an inspiring winner and it was just a lot of fun to be up there with some great people like Jorge and Edwin. The afternoon of lecturing also helped distract me - I suppose it is quite funny my lecture was titled (not by me) “Breaking the WBC code”. Didn’t appreciate getting locked out of the complex by the staff.

So - the result. Calling out those names was always going to be intense. Each card hoping it wouldn’t be Stephen and then having the excitement tempered by feeling bad for each of the amazing finalists who had come so close. I had some really great drinks up on that stage - Dave’s sig drink was a lesson in working with fruit and using its natural acidity to very cleverly and simply compliment a coffee. A simple idea that is incredibly difficult to execute. I had snuck a shot of his espresso that morning and it was tasting great too. I also have to say that Daniel’s coffee was a lot of fun to drink - and passing them out to the audience always makes me think that the baristas on stage should be sharing more of the coffee with the people watching.

Stephen entered both the competition and the finals in a great psychological position - what I would consider the ideal position: excited, nervous and aiming only to give the best presentation he could and not worry about his final result. The mistakes in the first round gave us focus for the finals and he gave a great performance. I’d seen it many times before but never enjoyed it that much. Seeing the scores his drinks got afterwards was wonderful - he did a great job preserving and delivering what we love about those coffees to the judges. I hope that Stephen’s win will be a signpost to future competitors, and I think the judges are sending a clear message that I hope the community will hear and understand. Already I am curious about next year’s competition.

Stephen is going to have a great year, and I hope I can help him in any way and pass on my experiences (both good and bad) to help him get the most out of it. It is an amazing year of learning and a great privilege coupled with a great responsibility. We are all excited about what the year will bring.

Now it is back to relative normality. Anette is back doing incredible things at the roaster and we are all excited about the potential we have to improve and explore what we are doing. Talking to Andrew Barnett (something I could do for hours) we were talking through the geeky facts of competition and I think we have two firsts - Anette is the first person to roast WBC winning coffee twice, and this is the first winning coffee to be all washed coffees. (Do correct me if I am wrong on these).

Usually these long posts are peppered with photos, but my camera is almost as broken as my mac (let’s not even start on how borked the macbook is - sorry to those suffering email issues with me) so no photos were taken. Anette took a few I think, and they should end up online soon I hope.

I didn’t bring home as much coffee as I initially wanted to, but then winning kind of changed my plans. We are planning to run open evenings of espresso tastings for other baristas around London and surrounding area and the first one was going to be the top 6 WBC blends, but now it seems a bit commercial. Instead we will be doing one country at a time, getting coffee from 5 or 6 of our favourite roasteries and sharing them over the course of an evening once a month or so. Instead the first one will probably be Norway but more on that another time - I am way off topic here!

Thanks to everyone who helped us, who helped Stephen and massive thanks to Anette for not only being awesome but for doing great things with coffee in a very quiet way. I hope to see lots of you soon, either in London or if I end up travelling more again. And once more:

Congratulations Stephen!

Related Posts

• May 29, 2008 -- Square Mile Coffee Roasters and this blog (3)
• June 7, 2008 -- Thoughts from the last week (11)
• May 22, 2008 -- UK Cupping Competition (16)
• March 10, 2008 -- Stephen Morrissey - Irish Barista Champion 2008! (5)
• February 3, 2008 -- Barista Competition Judging (23)

First thing this morning was Stephen’s practice time - pulling shots and actually being very happy with how things were tasting. Then I had to run across to compete in the Cupping competition (do you see a theme here?) I was delighted and amazed to come through my first round without a mistake, finishing in 4th after the first round and going into the semis. Thanks also to Klaus for lending me a Vista Hermosa spoon! Everyone was blown away by Casper’s first round: Eight out of eight in 1.18! So fast, so accurate - we were all a little nervous! Running back to sort out Stephen’s comp music (which I love dearly) and then back again to compete in my semi. I was very pleased to come 5th (a little wood trophy too!) but I definitely didn’t deserve to go further as there were some truly amazing cuppers there. Jorge from El Salvador was particularly awesome and looked the strongest into the three man final. In the end Casper won it, Jorge 2nd and Sweden third.

Just in time for me to run back over to watch Stephen perform. By watch I mean peak from behind my fingers/Jenny/the curtain and try to chat with folks online to ease my nerves. What didn’t help was Stephen’s sig drink spill but his recovery was great and I was delighted to give him a big hug before running off to give a workshop on “Breaking the WBC code”. (not my choice of title)

Despite the SCAE seemingly trying to lock us in a different building I managed to run back in time for the finals announcement. The kept Stephen till the very end and my roar of excitement was very quickly tempered by the feelings of sadness and disappointment for the amazing baristas like Luciano, Chris, Kyle and many others that didn’t get through. For me not seeing Kyle there was particularly disappointing as he is friend and more than that an inspiring barista and all round coffee professional. I had the chance to taste his coffee a few days ago and I loved it, and really wanted to see him perform again. I must also give a shout out to Chris Kolbu’s sig drink - the only one I tasted - that I still think should win best Sig Drink as it was both creative, delicious and a wonderful summation of what we want to communicate about the possibilities of coffee.

So Stephen is through to the finals! Amazing, exciting and I think for him a little disorientating. Anette does an amazing job roasting the coffee, and Stephen clearly delivered what was so exciting about it for us to the judges. I look forward to seeing him do more of that tomorrow and we know what we need to do to improve which is very helpful. Hopefully he can relax and enjoy the experience he has worked for.

Let’s hope his trophy is better than my trophy from today (though I might be sore if he does better at his first WBC than I did at mine!). Looking forward to catching up with all the folks watching online tomorrow! I will be there in the chatroom for as much as I can be - loving the worldwide interaction going on!

Thanks to everyone who has supported us, and congratulations to all of the national champions. 51 baristas who made their countries proud, and I hope to watch perform again soon.

See you all tomorrow!

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So - many of you know I was very kindly invited to Minneapolis to be part of the blog team updating the SCAA Blog. I was in esteemed blogging company - Erin Meister, Travis (quiet but awesome videoist) and Katie and Zachary who happened to change the face of coffee blogging back in Tokyo last year. Our remit was simply to cover the show, and to some extent we were making it up as we went along.

This was my first USBC and my last SCAA show had been Seattle in 2005. I had never attended any SCAA workshops before, so didn’t really know what to expect from that angle. Covering a talk ate up a lot of time, and often resulted in what seemed like not that much text. I think all of us were aware that we were writing for the SCAA, at their expense so we just tried to find the best of the show.

Of course the real draw for most people was the USBC. This has to be the most hardcore of the barista competitions outside of the WBC. The open rounds had 50 spots, and those baristas were whittled down to 16 who joined the 9 regional champions in the semifinals. Some amazing baristas didn’t make it through round one, which was oddly depressing and inspiring.

A very calm Chris Deferio in the semis pouring lovely tulips

Bronwen watching the clock

The highlight of the competition for me was getting to MC the finals with Nick Cho. It wasn’t getting to be onstage, or talk rubbish into a microphone. It was getting all six of the finalists to make us an espresso after their performance was over. I know what you are thinking, it is what everyone has been asking - which was best?

It is a difficult question to answer. Drew certainly had the advantage of making my first shot of the day, and it always tastes better when your body wants caffeine. Nick’s shot was really interesting though I was more focused on looking for the leather/sweet suede he described (which I totally got!). Heather’s shot reminded me of the WBC blend she brought to machine testing - quite heavy and with some prominent naturals. In contrast Chris Baca’s single estate Brazilian natural was not very naturally and super clean and complex. Pete’s blend was, in my humble opinion, more a traditional espresso blend (certainly in contrast to the three other single estate shots I’d taste) - quite heavy bodied and sweet. Kyle’s shot was stolen by Katie and he very kindly remade me a double. At this point I was quite caffeinated but his pull was very different to Nick’s - shorter and more intense, with the acidity a bit louder. Looking back it is tricky to pick a favourite but I told the people right after that it was probably Drew’s - though that isn’t to demean those other shots that were also truly excellent but suffered an increasingly caffeinated taster.

I get to this point and I realise I haven’t really talked about the first round or the semis. I didn’t get to see all of either though it was kind of fun to be allowed onstage (to photograph) whilst a few awesome people performed. I enjoyed Ben Helfen go job hunting in Finland, and Lem Butler… what can I say - Lem was a pure drama, rollercoaster-ride of a performance that brought tears to my eyes when against all odds he came in on time despite luck being against him and scuppering the start of his set. Watch the video…..

Sexy Foam

Come to think of it that stage was crazy - being up there was not a comfortable experience. The combination of the lights, the sound and the stadium seating meant you felt very distant from the audience and I think the overall experience threw a good number of the competitors. Perhaps those who had to go through round one had an advantage over those in the semis in that they knew a little more of what to expect from that. It looked great as a stage though!

Chris Baca in the Finals

For onstage photographing I was often accompanied by Meister who was far better at being out of the way than I was, and also by Liz “Twitchy” Clayton. Talking to Liz we would often joke and aim to get the best possible intense judging pictures. This is one of my favourites, in my mind the portafilter is glowing like gold…..

Intense Judging

Jay’s libation (I know Jon isn’t a God technically, but I couldn’t think of a better word - “toast” just doesn’t seem to do it) was a lot of fun - people always have high expectations of Jay’s performance and this was more touching than shocking.

Jay Handing out the beer

One thing was clear this year - lots more talking about the coffee. Lots more, which I something I thoroughly approve of. Baristas were there representing their coffee in a different way, seemingly more aware of a barista’s position in the coffee chain. It seemed to be the first competition I’d seen where the espresso upstages the sig drink and that is something no one can complain about.

I didn’t taste as much as I would have liked to - in terms of all the drinks, but I did manage to snaffle a few glasses out of the bussers trays. I’d like to apologise to the busser who tried to stop me tasting a drink, telling me I wasn’t allowed but unable to stop me because she was stuck holding the tray with both hands. (And no - I didn’t give it the “don’t you know who I am?!” crap, despite several people suggesting that this is the way to go in such situations…)

No doubt Kyle’s individual sig drink preparations were a great little concept, in line with espresso being a drink prepared to order, for an individual opposed to other bulk brewing methods. Scott Lucey’s sig drink was also great - simple, yet very tasty and totally ticking the texture box for me with its custard component. I would have killed to taste Baca’s drink but the judges drank it all every time (as asked) so we (me, hopefully bussers, audience members, friends and bloggers) were left salivating but unsatisfied. I have to just add that the whole Ritual crew were very inspiring to me, as were the Intelli crew. People like that get me excited about coffee and I don’t think it is out of place to say that if there were a barista’s barista award at the show (as there have been at some regionals) then Baca may well have picked that up.

Those crazy

The ever awesome Scott Lucey

One more note on the competition - the live feed. I can’t believe how well it worked out, how much fun it was to interact with people watching and on occaison to pick up the laptop and do a little backstage cam stuff. Sorry for my silliness. The quality of the feed will only improve and I hope to online as well as live at the WBC, interacting again with all those online watching things unfold.

There is lots of other discussion circling around online - from the SCAA blog coverage to the grinders baristas were using onstage and the techniques that went along with them. The doserless Roburs are terrifyingly fast (2.5s for around 19-20g by the look of things) but I suspect the Anfim’s scored higher. It was great to talk to John Ermacoff about the mods he has done on the ones Ritual are using. I suspect that if you put John Ermacoff, Greg Scace and Andy Schecter into a workshop for a month, gave them unlimited budget, then they would come up with something that would totally change the way we brew espresso.

I spent virtually no time on the show floor, which was quite frustrating as there were lots of people I wanted to see, but I had a few good drinks - the Chemex of Ethiopian Konga from Lindsay at 49th was delightful as was my espresso from Jeremy on the Synesso booth. Getting into lectures and workshops at the show was a privilege but I don’t really have anything to add to the stuff on the SCAA blog.

So congratulations to Kyle. I am a big fan of his, it was a pleasure to watch him perform three times and to see that performance evolve onstage. He is not only technically outstanding as a barista but a great ambassador for specialty coffee in the United States. That and he makes me laugh quite a lot. Hopefully I’ll catch up with him before WBC, but if not I can’t wait to see him again there and see what he brings to the stage.

I know I’ve missed out people, coffee and things and I apologise - I always forget stuff and my head still isn’t on the right way around. I am sure people reading this will have questions and I will try and answer them - and if I have forgotten obvious stuff (not unlikely) I will add to it asap.

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• March 10, 2008 -- Stephen Morrissey - Irish Barista Champion 2008! (5)
• December 26, 2007 -- 2007 - A review of the year (2)
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Iceland seems a good time to post because I am also looking ahead to SCAA in Minneapolis. I am part of a team of bloggers (I have never been called that before, I don’t know how I feel about it) covering all aspects of the SCAA conference at the SCAA Blog. I am very excited! If people have specific requests of what they would like to see, or read about, then let me know. I am also thinking of cross posting stuff on here but I am not sure it is necessary. (thoughts?)

Anyway - Iceland!

Expectations were high, mostly because all the Icelandic coffee people I know are awesome. Anette and I arrived and had a quick snoop around town before heading over to Adi’s birthday at the newest Kaffitar (which is beautiful and unlike any coffee shop in London) and then over to the venue to have a quick look.

The morning callibration was at the Tea & Coffee training room, and as Brent Fortune was also judging with us it was a nice chance to discuss rules, regs, judges training and all (though I don’t envy the work Brent and others are doing in the run up to the USBC).

Most competitions are pretty hectic to judge, and a little frustrating because it is hotel, exhibition centre (which all look the same) then restaurant, then back to hotel to try and sleep. With less competitors we got to enjoy things a bit more.

After the first day’s competitors we all piled into a couple of cars and headed East into Iceland. Instead of being all touristy and going to the Blue Lagoon, Asa took us to a little place in the middle of nowhere. I really mean nowhere, I have no idea how you remember how to get there. But there, in the middle of a barren landscape was a hole filled with flowing hot water. Very hot water - I quickly got too hot sat in it, which is impressive considering how cool the air was.

Hot springs in the middle of nowhere

Sitting in the hot springs

It was also a chance to drive through more of the countryside. Lots of people say Iceland looks like the moon (me included) but it really is strikingly unlike anywhere else I have been. Beautiful though.

After the hot springs we headed over to Gullfoss, a big - but very,very cold, waterfall. We would have stayed and looked longer but the spray from the falls chilled us all very quickly and despite being still very light it was getting on for 9pm so we headed back to Reykjavik. Instead of a restaurant it was a pleasant change to be entertained at Unnsteinn’s apartment. It felt lovely and very sociable, and it is nice to be able to relax.

Chilly Gullfoss

Now - back the competition. What I really liked is that each day started with a “guinea pig” to help callibrate the judges. Sonja Grant kicked things off with a Christmas theme, and on successive days we had a gay theme and an 80s theme. Competition is still fun in Iceland!

Christmas!

Gay!

80’s !

After the latte art competition (congrats to Jonina!) the 12 semifinalists were whittled down to 6 for the finals. Congrats to Palmar on winning the championship, he really stepped it up between semis and finals, and also congrats to Harpa who had given a great performance in the semis and picked up the best espresso, best capp and best signature drink. I had a lot of fun judging, as did Anette, and it was great to see lots of people again. If we hadn’t been traveling and working so much then perhaps we would have had the stamina to keep up with the locals on the last night but Anette and I gave in a few good hours before the rest.

I hope to go back, I really liked Iceland and thanks again to everyone who hosted us and made us feel very welcome.

But tomorrow it is back on a plane and off to SCAA. The next posts will all be here.

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Both Anette and I were gutted we couldn’t be in Dublin to support Stephen, and to watch him win. I know from Tokyo that Jen (Stephen’s better half) is great at supporting someone competing and Tim Styles no doubt did a great job of helping do all the things that make competing a little bit easier and a tiny bit less stressful.

I am looking forward to finding out more about how Stephen did and reading his write up of the event. In the meatime I hope he got very, very drunk after the event as I believe is fitting.

Thanks also to the Coffee Collective for roasting awesome coffee, and as they have set the bar very high when it comes to working on a coffee for Stephen to use in Copenhagen once we start roasting.

Stephen is a great barista, and a great ambassador for coffee in Ireland and in general. I can’t wait to watch and support him in Copenhagen!

Congratulations again.

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