Back when I was in Moscow Jose Arreola asked me if I would be interested in coming down to Colombia to do some barista training and workshops and to help push up their competition standard. I agreed and Anette and I headed down to Bogota, and after a few days in Armenia it was [...]

Today Anette and I drove across to Bristol for a barista jam happening there.  Our original plans had us out of the country, so this was the silver lining to the cancellation of that trip.  The event was hosed by Beyond the Bean and sanctioned by the SCAE UK.
We arrived a little late and the [...]

With the judges calibration days coming up and the first regionals for the UK Barista Championship happening next month I thought I just put up a quick post to see if anyone who reads this is entering the competition and if so - which heat? Feel free to leave a comment - say hello.
And if [...]

If you are watching the blogs then you’ll know that David Makin is on a whirlwind tour of the world and he stopped by London for a couple of days to work on competitions.

For me this was both really interesting and challenging.  It wasn’t like training someone new to espresso or new to competition.  Quite [...]

I am slowly recovering from my week in Moscow as a member of the UK team for the 2nd European Team Challenge. It was a lot of fun, and I’ll start of by saying that we didn’t retain the title - this year the very worthy winners were the host nation: Russia.
It goes without saying [...]