The Jam opened up the night before with registrations, a keynote speech from Jon Lewis (that Jay Caragay filmed and I hope puts up on youtube) and then a talk from Peter Giuliano about sustainability and exactly what it can encompass and how far away we are from being a genuinely sustainable industry.

Jon is 18 grams of coffee

After that it was time for the Spro down. $10 bought you three minutes in which you could pull 3 times and most people served the last of those. Three stations were set up as we had 30 people to get through and I judged the second station with Devlin from New Harvest (who supplied the coffee). The coffee was very interesting – 1 yirg, a kenya, 2 roasts of a harrar and a sumatran coffee. The levels of acidity in it didn’t lend itself to well to updosed short shots and Rich from Aldo was the barista who progressed from our station to the final three with a slightly longer and more balanced shot. Phil from Counter Culture and Austin (a barista from New York) were the other two in the final. Again Rich pulled a longer and more balanced shot and that won him the day. I think he was quite surprised. The trophies were described as being from the Nick Cho trophy cabinet. (apologies for the coffeed injoke)

Devlin and an excited Aaron Ultimo

Troy presents Rich his trophy

There was a really nice atmosphere and we headed to bed reasonably early, in order to spend more time being cross with the incredibly loud airconditioner whose sole purpose was to wake us up every hour on the hour.

The next day the jam started early and I was teaching (I use that word loosely) an espresso class. Lots more people turned up that day and the way it worked was to split them into two groups. It meant that I had a one hour espresso extraction class with a 3 group GB5 and 40+ people. It quickly degenerated into a question/answer session which was a lot of fun. I was somewhat nervous having Scott Rao in my second group as I tried to explain my theories about approaching brew recipes with a view to the components in your coffee and their roast level. People seemed to agree with what I was ranting about, and the atmosphere in the room was great.

Giving the espresso extraction class

There were a lot of people at the event I enjoyed meeting or catching up with again, and the demands of the roadtrip made leaving halfway into the day quite frustrating even if we were heading somewhere quite exciting. I could have spent hours talking to Jon, and the conversation about sig drinks between Jon, Jay and I was just getting interesting when the call of the road became too loud to ignore.

It was great to meet a load of baristas there, and that jam seemed to me to be what barista jams were all about – interaction, fun and lots of great coffee. Congrats to everyone who worked hard on it.

So on the road and a quick stop in Philedelphia for a tasty espresso at a brand new store called Spruce Street (thanks Faith), and a waffle that I hope was worth the parking ticket (I thought it was!) before heading down to Baltimore as we had reservations at the Woodberry Kitchen. If you read Jay’s blog you have probably heard of the place and my expectations were pretty high.

Spike, the owner and chef, met us on the way in and I was later quite excited when he took our menus away and made decisions for us. The setting of the restaurant is fantastic, a beautiful old brick building, high ceilings, wonderful detail and to back it all up Spike and his chefs can really, really cook. Cindy, Ryan Jensen, Anette and I enjoyed about 5 courses I think, and Ryan and I shared a fantastic bottle of wine.

Spike came over at the end for a chat, and asked if I had had coffee. His barista apparently had been primed but I had decided against it, because for a long time now I had been against espresso in restaurants, but he insisted and I had to eat my words as the shot Mischa (his barista) pulled really was very, very good. In fact the best espresso I’ve ever had in a restaurant. (I am aware not every place has a 2 group Cyncra and a dedicated barista!) I was impressed and for once a great meal was improved and not ruined by the coffee.

Mischa, myself, Anette and Spike at the Woodberry Kitchen

I love the feel of the place, and the level of care and detail in every section impressed me, and it sounds like what they are planning to do next is going to be amazing.

After this we headed into DC, guests at the Jensen/Ultimo household – but more about that in the next post….

We arrived a little late and the group of about 30 had already been split into three groups.  One group were with Se Gorman and he was talking about cappuccinos (with reference to competition), another group with Ed Buston for his espresso workshop and then the final group were with WBC judge Jeremy Regan so they could ask questions about the rules and he could go through the scoresheets and make sure they understood how they were being judged.  I kind of flitted about taking the occasional photo and trying not to get in the way.

Se:

Ed:

Jeremy:

A lot of people attending were competing and many were first time competitors so it was great for them to know a little bit more about what is expected and it can only have a positive effect on the level of competition in the UK.

After a spot of luncheon the group was split into two and one group went upstairs to cup with Peter James of James Gourmet.  Eight coffees were put on the table, 4 commercial blends, a couple of specialty blends, a mill grade and a single estate.  Cupping for the first time is quite intimidating and in a large group it is often difficult to encourage people to speak up and plant a flag of opinion but as people slowly did it was great to see their faces light up as they realised that they were very capable of picking out differences and that just about everyone agreed with them.

The other group were downstairs messing about with signature drink stuff.  A number of my own (horrifically) failed experiments make me nervous about off the cuff sig drink creations but I tasted a couple of pretty good drinks today, excellent considering how quickly they had been put together.  However I didn’t get much time to hang out in this session as I got stuck in to helping out with the grunt work of the cupping.

A big part of any jam is about baristas meeting and chatting to other baristas.  There were people who had traveled a very long way to be there today which was very cool.  It all ended around half five and we headed back to the smog of London.  A big thank you to everyone involved in making today happen – it was a lot of fun and very much appreciated.

Would love the opinion of anyone who attended?  What did you think?  What did you like?  What would you like to see improved?