For those who have no idea what I am talking about I should explain.  There is a defect in coffee that is referred to as potato.  It is the result of a bacterial infection of the seed, usually after being bitten by an insect carrying that bacteria.  Once roasted that particular bean carrys very, very strong aromas of freshly peeled potato skins that is incredibly potent when you grind the coffee and when you brew it.

Unlike many other defects you can’t tell if a green or roasted bean has potato in it until it is too late.  The solution to the problem is very labour intensive.  When the cherries are picked any cherries that show signs of damage are discarded, and this process is usually done by hand.  After the washing process, when the parchment coffees are still very wet it is also apparently possible to see the damage and discard the beans at that point.  However if a bean has been missed and is dried then it is undetectable until ground.

The potato defect is a problem in several countries, but has become more of a talking point as Rwanda has risen to prominence as producing country capable of stellar coffees, but also a producing country that has problems with potato.  I don’t want to rattle on too much about it – I highly recommend reading this thread if you want to know more about the potato defect.

The real point of this thread is to talk about the weird psychological effect that potato had on me, and ask if anyone else suffers this.  Once you smell potato a few times in a coffee you are using you become hyper sensitive and a bit paranoid.  Cautiously sniffing for even the faintest sign of potato.  The Nyamagabe lot we used in Stephen’s WBC espresso suffered from potato, and we went to ludicrous efforts to prevent it¹

It snuck up again in Copenhagen – during the Cupping competition I was stood near the prep area, next to Edwin from Finca Vista Hermosa, and we both caught the distinct potato peelings smell in the air.  That cup was pretty easy to pick out!

After the lot of Nyamagabe was finished I thought I would be able to relax, but still the smell haunted me.  Every now and again I’d find myself sitting bolt upright in the roastery, sniffing the air thinking “Is that potato?? IS THAT POTATO??” before remembering that it couldn’t be, and that I was loosing my mind.

Am I the only one?  Does anyone else who has experienced potato a bit get somewhat paranoid about tuberous smells?  Am I making quite a public fool of myself?  You decide…..

1. We packed all the Nyamagabe component seperately in 500g bags that were sealed.  Before use we’d carefully open each bag and elimate any that showed even the slightest waft of potato before blending with the El Bosque.  Regardless of this – the final practise shot on stage before the finals there was a clear and terrifying *poof* of potato flavour that filled the stage.  We hoped lightening didn’t strike twice!

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!

However I was also due to give a lecture/seminar at the Caffe Culture trade show right at the time I was now scheduled to cup. I asked for 5 minutes delay at the start of the table and just went for it. I think I did my table in 2 and a half minutes then ran off to go and start my seminar leaving someone else to do my reveal. A little while later I got another knock on the seminar door letting me know I was in the final and could I possibly pop out and cup quickly. Stephen kindly took over for 5 minutes as I breathlessly jogged across to the stage, I cupped as quickly as I could (2:26 I think) and then ran back to the seminar. I was very pleased to receive another knock on the door 5 minutes later to let me know I had won! Woo and yay! I shall now be taking on Stephen (and trying to scupper him the night before with a good curry – any info on good curry in Copenhagen appreciated) and being nervous tasting coffee with lots of other lovely people next month.

If I find any photos I will put them up. No trophy for the cabinet, but a certificate and someone to pay my airfare to the WBC which is very nice. Thanks to everyone involved – I will perhaps write up Caffe Culture at some point too.