Welcome to Portland!

If you are out and about in Portland’s coffee shops the next few days, you might overhear more in-depth coffee conversations than normal. In case you haven’t heard, Portland is hosting the Specialty Coffee Association 2012 Event. The Event, the largest gathering of the year for the specialty coffee industry, consists of a trade show/exposition, a symposium for coffee professionals and the US Barista Championships. It might be the largest collection of coffee nerds ever convened in one place.

Here are a few things you might want to check out during the week.

SCAA Exposition

The Exposition is a huge trade show where you can walk around and be wowed by all things coffee. You’re sure to find lots of interesting demonstrations and all the coffee you can possibly taste in one day.

Details:

• When: Friday and Saturday 11am-5:30pm, Sunday 11am-4:30pm


• Where: Convention Center (map)


• Cost: Three-day pass (includes the trade show, USBC and Expo Lectures) costs $295 for non-SCAA members. One and two-day passes (no lectures) are available for $115 and $185, respectively. You can get more details on tickets here:


• Find out about lectures and other events here.

United States Barista Championship (USBC)

The USBC runs concurrently with the SCAA Event. Fifty-six top baristas from around the United States will be competing over four days for the title of US Barista Champion.

Details:

• Where: Convention Center (map)


• When:
  
  
  
  • Round 1 – Thursday and Friday 9am-5pm
  
  
  • Semi-finals – Saturday 10am-4:30pm
  
  
  • Finals – Sunday 12-3pm
  
  
  • Cost: $10 for a 3-day pass
  
  
  • For more information visit the USBC website, where you can the competition’s rules and regulations, see a full competition schedule and watch a live stream of all competitors.
  
  
  
  

Portland has seven baristas competing in the USBC. Here is their schedule:

• Tyler Stevens, Barista – Thursday 9:15am


• Ann Schneider, Sterling – Thursday 9:34am


• Brett Felchner, Barista – Thursday 12:44pm


• Thomas Pikaart, Water Avenue – Thursday 2:19pm


• Collin Schneider, Sterling – Thursday 2:38pm


• Laila Ghambari, Stumptown – Friday 10:31am


• Devin Chapman, Coava – Saturday 11:33am (automatically qualified for semi-finals as regional champ)

Good luck to all 56 competitors!

Coffeelandia

Another event to put on your calendar is Coffeelandia, a street party hosted by Portland Roasting Coffee, CBI, Boyd’s, World Cup Coffee and others. It should be a rousing event. Coffee people know how to party. Really, they do.

Details:

• When: Friday, April 20 7pm-11pm


• Where: Outside Portland Roasting, Southeast 7^th and Oak (map)


• Cost: Your $10 donation supports Portland Global Initiatives and Global Brigades and their water projects in Honduras.


• Other: Entry comes with three alcoholic drinks, plus live music, dance and karaoke. Coffee drinks will be free.


• This is a 21 and over event, so you'll have to leave the kids at home.


• More details at the Coffeelandia website.

Discover: Lever

Learn about the Astoria Gloria lever espresso machine at Clive Coffee. The event description promises a “hands-on educational experience,” so if you go, you’ll probably get your chance to try your had a pulling a shot or two.

• When: Thursday, April 19 6pm-9pm


• Where: Clive Coffee, 79 Southeast Taylor (map)


• More details at the event’s facebook page.

Coffee Tours

Between the show and the other happenings, you might not have much time to visit PDX cafés, but if you can sneak out for a quick coffee tour, here are a couple itineraries to help streamline your explorations:

• Downtown Power Tour (map): Coffeehouse Northwest -> Barista (Pearl) -> Caffè Umbria -> Courier -> Public Domain -> Spella -> Stumptown (Downtown)


• Eastside Quickie (map): Water Avenue -> Coava -> Heart


• Northern Sips (map): Ristretto (Williams) -> Albina Press -> Barista (Alberta) -> Caffé Vita


• Killingsworth Crawl (map): Red E -> Coffeehouse Five -> Extracto

It should be a great week for coffee lovers. Prepare yourself to hear about more coffee origins, roasting profiles, espresso machines, extraction percentage, barista competitions, grinder technology, etc. than you ever have before. Hopefully, you’ll get a little sun to go with your coffee. Enjoy!

Slugging Espressos

In the last couple days, I’ve had the pleasure of visiting three top Portland cafés: Coffeehouse Northwest, Extracto and Barista Alberta. If we were talking about baseball (and the season is just around the corner), these three cafés would be comparable to the 1927 Yankees (the famed “Murderer’s Row”). In other words, I was expecting a great lineup of espressos.

At Coffeehouse Northwest I ordered both of the espressos on grind (the famous flight), each roasted by Sterling. The first, from Los Piajos de Tolima (from Colombia), was impressive. If I were scoring it for a barista competition, I would give it high marks in many categories. The appearance of the crema was shiny and consistent, the persistence and consistence very good (thick and lasting). The taste was well-balanced—sweet, sour and bitter elements all came through in a way that was pleasant. A sweet plum flavor punctuated the first sip. Its tactile balance, or mouthfeel, was superb. It had lots of body but still fit comfortably inside my mouth.

After enjoying the Colombia, I took the second leg of the flight, to Rwanda. The coffee, grown by the Coko cooperative, was also roasted by Sterling.  The crema had an even color with a light sheen, but it was a little on the thin side. When I sipped it, I immediately noticed the differences in mouthfeel compared to the first. It was very heavy and syrupy. The acidity was the most prominent of the flavor components, although it did not overpower the others. The coffee left an aftertaste of toasted popcorn (where some of the kernels had been on the bottom of the pan too long, adding some caramelized flavors to the mix). Overall, very good but not quite as good as the first.

At Extracto , the single-origin espresso I tried was a Kimel peaberry from Papua New Guinea. Savory, savory, savory—that’s how it tasted. The barista said the earthiness should really stand out. He wasn’t kidding. The thick espresso had the bite of a fresh rosemary leaf or green tomatoes. The bitter element stood out a touch more than the sweet or the sour, but all three were present, so it was fairly balanced.

My second Extracto espresso was the blend on grind (unfortunately, I forgot to ask the name). Like the previous espresso, it was also very thick and syrupy. Cocoa notes came through in the first sip and caramel flavor about halfway down the cup. The espresso left an aftertaste kind of like a Twix candy bar (without adding any sugar).

A couple blocks away, at Barista Alberta, I headed back to South America and ordered a single-origin Peru Cevasa, roasted by Stumptown. A quick visual inspection gave the coffee good marks – it had an even, shiny reddish crema (a small blond stripe in the middle would cost it the “excellent” rating in competition). The first sip was bright, but the brightness quickly backed off. Flavors of green apple washed across my palate. Although the espresso seemed heavy at first, it did not linger, quickly dissipating and leaving a clean mouthfeel behind. 

Looking at the box score, the cafés went 5 for 5 with two home runs (the Colombia and the blend at Extracto).  Not even the most feared lineup in the history of baseball could do that every day. I tip my hat to a job well done. 

Barista Alberta - the great escape

It is easy to argue that Portland’s weather is a big factor in why the city has so many cafés. Drinking copious amounts of coffee is one way to fight the blues that can accompany long stretches of nothing but clouds and rain.

While caffeine will keep you going for a while, relying on a coffee-only strategy to push away the dreariness will only carry you through part of the winter. By the end of February, you need an additional strategy to deal with the grayness. Otherwise, the next three months of clouds and rain will drive you crazy.

My strategy for making it through the early part of spring is to go into denial. After three years in Portland, I still haven’t bought an umbrella. Part of the reason is thrift, part sheer stubbornness, and part is just a way of maintaining a connection with my hometown, where it doesn’t rain enough to warrant buying an umbrella. Living in my own version of reality, I have come to accept that sometimes I will be lucky and stay dry and sometimes I will get soaked.

On a recent trip to visit Barista Alberta (a.k.a. Barista II), I started out with fortune on my side, narrowly escaping a good drenching as I walked to the bus stop. As I stepped into the shelter, the skies cut loose. By the time I reached Northeast PDX, though, the rain had stopped and the ground was dry. I stepped off the bus at 42^nd and Alberta, thinking I could quickly walk the ten blocks or so to the café, safe from the whims of the weather. 

My luck did not hold, however. By the time I reached the café, twenty-five blocks later (travel tip: always check the address of where you’re going before you get off the bus), the rain had returned and I was sopping wet.  The walk was worth it though, for Barista Alberta is a café unlike others in Portland.

Approaching the front door of the café, I was somewhat wistful. Barista Alberta represented a sort of milestone in my coffee journey. There are other cafés in PDX that I have yet to visit, but of the top-tier, coffee-centered cafés, Barista Alberta was the last one I had to visit. I have known about the café for the last year and a half, but for one reason or another, had not yet made it there. I’m glad I saved it until last. I would not have appreciated it as much had I visited a year earlier.

One of the few cafés in town to carry the Financial Times, Barista Alberta caters to the artsy crowd as well as the banker crowd. With its dark wood paneling, the café feels like the study of a distinguished 19^th century aristocrat. Stuffed antelopes, pheasants and ducks stare down at you from the walls with suspended indifference. If you visited the café in another era, you would expect to see men in tweed suits sitting around the tables, smoking cigars with each other, planning mergers and acquisitions or complaining about the current political landscape. In the current age, however, you see people enjoying finely-crafted coffees and staring intently at their laptops.

As expected, Barista’s espresso menu featured multiple roasters’ coffees. There were three espressos available on grind—Stumptown’s Ethiopia Yurga, Heart’s latest from Guatemala, and the Honduran Esmerín Enamorado from 49^th Parallel in Vancouver, B.C. I didn’t check what was available as brewed coffee—why bother?

After a moment’s deliberation, I chose the Honduras Esmerín Enamorado. The barista pulled a nice, smooth shot that was rich and creamy. The flavors reminded me of buttered popcorn, with a sweet hint of prunes at the finish.

Sentiment permeated the air and my spirits were lifted as I sat at a corner table. Over the speakers, Toto sang about “blessing the rains down in Africa” (how could I curse the rains in Portland while listening to that song?). When Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” came on, I was transported back to my days in elementary school (it’s weird how music does that to you—every time I hear  a Journey song, I think of the 1980’s Journey video game we played at the local pizza parlor. If you don’t remember it, here’s a humorous YouTube review of the game to rekindle some memories).

With some of the finest baristas in town, Barista Alberta is creating a new, 21^st-century aristocracy—that of quality coffee. The café stands out for the uniqueness of its form and the quality of its substance. It can be hard for cafés  to distinguish themselves in this town, but Barista II clearly succeeds. You can visit the cafe to explore espressos or to escape the melancholy of spring. You could even try to hide in there until the rains go away and summer arrives. Just be sure to save me a table. I hope to return soon.

Vitals
Address: 1725 NE Alberta, Portland OR 97211 (map)
Phone: No
Hours: Monday-Friday 6am-6pm
            Saturday-Sunday 7am-6pm
Wi-Fi? Yes
Recommendations? Sit at the bar and watch the baristas in action
Website: baristapdx.com

Competitive coffee II - Judgment day

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Day 1 – How I became a judge

When I woke up Friday morning, the first thing that popped into my mind was the four elements of the espresso category along with the things I should be looking for in each one. I was focused. At least I hadn’t dreamed about cappuccinos.

We went to the convention center an hour before the start of the competition to do a little more calibration of our palates. We judged a few espressos and cappuccinos and returned to the judges’ chambers (really just a side room).

At 12pm, we got the call to come judge. We filed out into the competition hall, were introduced, shook the competitor’s hand and took our places. It was time to see if our training had prepared us.

Competition protocol

The protocol for SCAA-sponsored barista competitions is standard throughout the United States. During the competition, baristas have 15 minutes to prepare their competition station. The station is set up with a machine table (where the espresso machine sits), a preparation table (for storing milk and other ingredients) and the judges table (where the four sensory judges sit, and act as customers). As the barista prepare, they calibrate their grinder and carefully lay out the tools they will need to make the drinks. Usually, they set out plates, napkins, water glasses and spoons at the judges’ table.

After the 15 minute prep time, the judging team enters and takes its place. That’s when the main competition really begins.

Each barista must make three sets of four drinks during the 15 minutes – an espresso, a cappuccino and a signature beverage for each of the four sensory judges. That’s 12 drinks in 15 minutes! It would be a difficult challenge for a barista accomplish anytime and even more so with the pressure of competition weighing on them. Baristas must be efficient and fluid with their movements. The baristas are expected to talk about the coffee(s) they are using, describing the origin and the characteristics that make their chosen coffee special.

Seven judges evaluate each competitor’s performance. This includes two technical judges, a head judge and four sensory judges. The technical judges hover over and around the competitors while they are presenting, watching how the barista grinds, tamps, uses towels, keeps the station clean, and a myriad of other details.

The head judges watch the other judges to make sure they are judging consistently. The head judge tastes many of the drinks, often writing down their own scores. These scores do not count, but it does help the head judge estimate what the sensory judges should be scoring each drink. If there are any major discrepancy between the judges, the head judge helps resolve them.

I chose to be a sensory judge, for several reasons. First, I had done a lot of “sensory evaluation” (drinking espresso) over the last year and a half, so I knew I would feel more comfortable as a sensory judge. Second, technical judges have a large number of small things to watch and it helps to have a lot of barista experience. Most importantly, the sensory judges are the ones who get to taste the drinks. How could I go to a barista competition and not taste the drinks?

Put your tastes aside

As a sensory judge, one challenge was to put my biases aside and base my observations on the rules set by the competition committee. When I go cafés, I often “judge” the espresso and talk about its flavors. Most of my observations are highly subjective, which is fine in context of the blog. However, it doesn’t make for good competition scoring. To be a good judge, you have to be able to discard your own preferences and judge the espressos against the standards in the rule book. For espresso, this means you evaluate the crema, first for its color, then for its persistence and consistency.

Next, you mix the espresso three times from front to back, using the small spoon that the barista is required to provide. An espresso should have a balance of sweetness, sourness and bitterness, and these reside at different levels in the cup. Mixing the espresso allows you to detect all three flavors in each sip (assuming they are present). In addition to the taste balance, you also evaluate its “tactile balance,” or what coffee people often refer to as mouthfeel. These characteristics test the barista’s skills at pulling shots.

Cappuccinos are judged in a similar manner. The first criterion is visual appeal, which doesn’t mean the barista is skilled at latte art. Instead, judges are looking for contrast, sheen, balance, symmetry and whether or not there is a complete brown espresso ring around the outside of the milk in the center. Once the judges have evaluated the visual aspect, they take a spoon and push it across the foam of the cappuccino to check the persistence and consistency (“per-con,” in judging lexicon). Foam must be 1cm thick or more for the cappuccino to score Very Good in the per-con category.

After checking out how they look, the judges sip the cappuccino to determine its “taste balance.” Both sips must be taken in a location on the rim where the foam was not disturbed by the spoon. The judge should be able to detect a pleasant balance between the sweetness of the milk and the more bitter espresso flavors. The temperature should also be a temperature that you can drink the cappuccino immediately, without letting it cool.

The third category of drinks, the signature beverage category, has criteria that are less defined. The baristas get to express their creativity in making a drink, so some of the drinks are very complex. I have seen baristas add coffee reductions, gum syrup, star fruit juice, a raspberry ganache, an infusion of hops—you name it, and a barista has tried it.

It is somewhat harder to calibrate for the signature beverages because they are different from competitor to competitor, but no matter what, the drink should be designed to feature the espresso. One of the keys for baristas who want to score well in the “sig bev” category is to clearly explain what they are doing so that the judges know what to expect. They should also remember that the espresso is central to the drink – i.e., whenever they are thinking about how to compose the drink, they should think how all of the additions showcase the espresso. It is easy to forget that. The beverage can be delicious, but if the judge cannot taste a strong espresso presence, it will receive a low score.

During the calibration, the head judges and trainers drilled the procedure and evaluation criteria into our heads, constantly reminding us that we had to remove our own tastes and biases from the evaluation process as much as possible. They had us focus on describing what we saw, so that we could justify the scores that baristas would receive.

Speed is important when you are a sensory judge. You need to quickly evaluate the drinks, because any time lag negatively effects the quality of the beverages. The crema on the espresso is its thickest and most stable when it is first served. So is the foam on the cappuccino. A judge cannot hesitate. With an espresso, for example, the judges’ thought process is something like, “color, tip forward, tip back, stir, stir, stir, sip once, sip twice, give it a score.” Then you take a couple notes to support the score you give it. You have to do this in a few seconds. At first, you go slowly trying to remember everything, but the process becomes automatic over time.

After each competitor, we went back to the judges room to finish our score sheets. Our head judge gently pushed us to make any corrections necessary. His experience was super helpful as we struggled a couple times to come up with the justification for our scores. Instead of telling us to change our scores (both upward and downward, by the way), he had us justify the score we gave the competitors. If we had good justification for what we experienced, he let the score stand.

The trainers’ instructions rattled around my mind as I sat at the table, trying hard to concentrate on what the barista was saying. While we were finishing the score sheets, the head judges told us to be sure to make eye contact and smile with the competitors to make them feel more at ease. I thought we had been, but apparently we were all concentrating so hard on getting the judging right that we forgot to smile. It was easier to smile for the next two. We were all more relaxed by then.

Worth doing again

Each of the competitors put in a lot of work preparing, and I felt honored to be a part of the team that judged them. As they told us in the beginning of the training, one of the main roles of a judge is to support the baristas as professionals. We’re not there to “judge” them (okay, yes we are), but rather to give them feedback for all their preparation and make the competition as much fun as possible. Everyone wants to help raise the specialty coffee industry’s profile and these competitions are an opportunity to do that.

We (the judges) appreciated the hard work they put in as they prepared for the competition. My highest praise goes to our trainers, the head judges who got us ready for judging (and scared the hell out of us with those tests). Above all, I would like to thank Mike Strumpf, of Swiss Water, who was the head judge on my judging team on Friday. Mike did a fantastic job guiding us. His experience and expertise was obvious as he led us when we needed help making the proper scoring decisions.

Looking back, I had a great time judging, and plan to do it again sometime. Hopefully it will work out to judge at the USBC when it comes to Portland in April. See you there?

Epilogue

I left Tacoma for Portland on Friday (if you missed the story of that misadventure, it’s here), but I did watch parts of the next two days on my computer. If you look closely, you might see a couple of local PDX coffee people in the screen shots of the competition.

The finals took place on Sunday afternoon. The top six competitors from the previous two days presented their routines for the judges one more time. This year, the six finalists were all from Portland (I told you Portland was the center of the specialty coffee universe). Sam Purvis (the 2010 NWRBC champion), and Devin Chapman represented Coava, Laila Ghambari represented Stumptown, Collin Schneider competed for Sterling/Coffeehouse Northwest and Tyler Stevens and Marty Lopes came from  Barista.

Devin Chapman finished first, Laila Ghambari, second, and Tyler Stevens, third. Chapman also won the regional Brewer’s Cup (for the second consecutive year), so he had a heck of a Sunday. He will automatically be entered in the semi-final round at the USBC, and the other five competitors can enter the first round of the USBC, if they choose. Portland is going to be well-represented as it competes on its home turf. 

Competitive coffee – How I became a barista competition judge

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Day 2 - Judgement Day

Brrriiiiingg! Brrriiiiingg! Brrriiiiingg!

My eyes popped open and I looked around, trying to figure out where I was. The room was still dark. What the hell? Will someone shut that bell off please?—I thought, half-dazed. Then I remembered—the bell was my 5:15 alarm going off. It was Thursday, January 26, and I was supposed to go to Tacoma for the 2012 Northwest Regional Barista Championships (NWRBC). Yawning, I rolled slowly out of bed, grabbed a quick breakfast and made my way to the bus stop by 5:50am.

The bus took me to meet Brandon Arends, who was driving us up to Tacoma. The NWRBC didn’t start until Friday, but we were going up a day early to get certified as judges for the competition. Over the last year, ever since we volunteered together at the 2011 NWRBC, Brandon has been trying to get me to try judging. For a long time, I was reluctant because I didn’t think I had enough relevant coffee experience. It’s one thing to regularly drink and write about coffee, and quite another to be working with it all the time. He finally convinced me though, which is why I found myself rolling up I-5 towards Tacoma at 6:15am.

I was a little nervous about the day ahead. I didn’t know what to expect at the training because I had waited until the last minute to register and never got the email with the day’s schedule and instructions. Brandon, who registered on time, had given me a little advice on Wednesday night, when we discussed our travel plans.

“Make sure you check out the rules and the score sheet,” he told me.

“I’ll do it,” I replied, not really intending to do much studying.

I should have heeded his warning a little more closely.

Tacoma – center of haute café (for a few days, at least)

The barista competition was once again being held at the Tacoma Convention Center in downtown Tacoma, where bail bonds shops outnumber specialty cafés. Since Tacoma is not the hotbed of coffee in the Northwest, you might wonder why the SCAA decided to hold its convention here two years in a row. I know I did.

Brandon suggested two reasons. First, Tacoma’s proximity to SEA-TAC airport makes it easy to travel there. Second, it would have been Portland’s turn to host, except that the city is hosting the United States Barista Championship in April. My theory is that if the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) held both competitions in Portland, it would be too openly admitting that Portland is the center of the universe when it comes to specialty coffee. Portlanders already know this to be true, but we wouldn’t want to hurt Seattle’s feelings.

Whatever the reason, the Tacoma Convention Center makes a good spot for the competition. It has lots of space, there’s free parking just a couple blocks away, and hotel rates in Tacoma are reasonable (late January is the low season for tourists in Tacoma).

Ready or not…

We scooted in through front doors at 9am and took our places at the only available seats in the room (the training was kind of like going to church—if you arrive late, you sit up front). The head judges welcomed everyone and introduced themselves before going over the protocol for becoming a judge. Each of the head judges had worked in the coffee industry and had years of experience judging competitions all over the world.

But what about the rest of us? What type of people are judges for barista competitions? Most of the people in the room worked full time in the coffee industry, as trainers, café managers, baristas, marketers—all types of roles.

However, not everyone had years of experience in the industry, so I didn’t feel as out of place as I thought I might. One woman was a writer from Seattle who was trying to learn more about coffee. Another woman had only worked in coffee for a year. She had never been to a competition before, but her manager encouraged her to come to judge.

After introductions, our teacher said it was time to take the certification test, and that we “have to get an 80% on the exams to get your certification to judge.”

Test?! Already? Eighty percent? I felt a whoosh of air around me as the test takers gasped in unison.  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t get the memo about knowing the rules beforehand.  Could they really expect us to know how to judge before we got there?

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recalled Brandon’s advice from the night before. At least I had read through the rules in the car on the ride up to Tacoma.

How much do you know?

I started down through the exam, which consisted of multiple-choice questions and fill-in-the-blank questions about both technical and sensory elements. The test took me nearly an hour to complete and covered the USBC rules and the official competition score sheet. It had questions like, “How do you judge the integrity of an espresso’s crema?” and “How thick does the foam on a cappuccino have to be for the drink to be eligible to receive a “Very Good” score?”

As I worked my way through the exam, I pictured myself back in college, sweating my way through an English literature exam I hadn’t prepared for. I employed every trick in the book I could think of, eliminating obviously incorrect answers and leafing through the different sections of the test for clues.

When everyone had finished the exam, we took a short break before resuming our training. Multiple people I talked to during the break were pessimistic about their results on the test.

It’s not getting easier

After we had been tested for our knowledge of the rules, we moved on to actually figuring out what made a good drink and what didn’t. One of the most difficult things about judging is to get all the judges to grade consistently between competitors. This process is known as calibration. The head judges showed us slides of what to look for when we looked at a good espresso crema (and a bad one). The crema is the foamy layer that sits on top of an espresso. It is formed when the steam is forced through the coffee grounds, emulsifying the oils inside. 

In each slide, the crema looked a little different. We discussed how they differed and which deserved good scores and which did not. The session helped us better understand the official standards of the competition.  We then took a quiz, looking at several photos of espressos of varying quality.

Just before the lunch break, we did a triangulation test to check our palates. I propose another name for it: the Sesame Street test (“one of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong…”). A triangulation test is an exercise where three coffees are set out on a table together. Two of them are the same and the other one is different.  The testers sip each one and mark down which of the three is different.

If I felt fairly confident about the capabilities of my palate before Thursday, I finished the triangulation test wondering if I had ever tasted coffee before in my life. We did six groups of three, and I was confident about only two of the groups. The rest of them were similar enough that I ended up guessing. I figured I had failed the test and would end up washing dishes instead of judging.

Everyone seemed relieved when lunch was served. As we gathered around the buffet table, I overheard several people in shock at the difficulty of the triangulation test. I don’t know if it really helps to know you aren’t the only one struggling, but I know I felt a whole lot better after eating.

After lunch, the head judges gave us our test results. By some miracle, I had passed! I was relieved (the judges also passed around a new exam for those who needed to re-take it. It turns out the first test was not our only opportunity to become a judge—but we didn’t know that at the time).

The real calibration – testing drinks

When everyone had their tests done, the group finally got down to calibrating with real drinks. We went to the main hall where the three espresso machines had been set up for the competition. Technical judges grouped up at one machine, and the sensory judges divided into two groups and gathered around the other machines. Each machine was staffed by a barista who made us a variety of drinks. Our barista tried to vary the quality of the shots he made, attempting to make the calibration more like the competition.

We began by evaluating espressos. Espresso is the main focus of the Barista Championships. Espresso is the most difficult type of coffee to make well and make consistently. If a barista wants to score well, he or she needs to make great espresso, not only in the espresso course, but also in the cappuccino and signature beverage course. As the baristas pumped out the espressos, the trainers let us write down our impressions, helping us keep to the regulations in the rulebook.

The calibration was fun, but challenging. All of the judges who were new to the certification process were reluctant to make a definitive score for each of the drinks we tried. We would taste a drink then look to our trainer for guidance, instead of writing down the score we thought it deserved. After a while, when we had evaluated shot after shot and cappuccino after cappuccino, we began to get a pretty good sense of what was good according to standard and what was not.

Each drink gets the following scores. Unacceptable=0, Acceptable=1, Average=2, Good=3, Very Good=4, Excellent=5 or Extraordinary=6. You can give scores with half-point increments, but no scores of 0.5 are allowed, and the head judge must approve any scores of Extraordinary. As we practiced judging, we were encouraged to use the words instead of the numbers in order to accustom ourselves to the official scoring language. The language helped us score the drinks more accurately.

We finally finished up the calibration about quarter to six. The head judges sent us home and told us to be back at 11am the next morning. We were well-caffeinated and ready to go find some dinner. My fears about being judged unworthy to be a judge had not been realized. When we got the schedule for Friday, I was assigned to the first, third and fifth competitors. I knew I would be nervous, but thanks to our trainers, I felt confident that I would do a good job.

Return of the Links

Break out your umbrellas! After a dry December, the rain has returned to the Rose City—and how! We’re pushing record levels of precipitation over the last few days and the forecast is for a lot more over the next week. Meanwhile, I received an email from a friend in Orlando who said it was 82 degrees and sunny there today. Do you suppose there is good coffee down there? Might be worth taking a trip to find out.

Don’t let the gray get you down, though, there are plenty of things to do inside. Here are a few links to take your mind off the weather for a while:

This story about DD made me want start a campaign “Stop! America does not run on….well, you know.” The last thing this country needs is more opportunities to by more sugar, fat and mediocre coffee.

David Lynch, who produced Twin Peaks,  is obsessed with coffee, though he is down to only seven cups per day (from a high of twenty).

Headed to Seoul? Check this café out.

For the environment, which is worse—throwing nine billion (9,000,000,000!) K-cups into a landfill, or making coffee and not drinking all of it? This article from the Kansas City Star takes a look at that question.

The political philosopher Leo Strauss once wrote that democracies need apathetic populations to function properly. Apparently that’s true for dictatorships too. Coffee consumption has a history of scaring rulers bent on controlling their people, according to NPR. In some cultures in the past, coffee drinkers faced capital punishment for sipping up. Imagine what such a policy would do to the population of the Pacific Northwest.

The Northwest Barista Championship is coming up next week in Tacoma. Here’s the link to the competition’s site, where you can see the schedule of events and (soon, hopefully) the list of competitors (currently there’s a nice video from last year’s event on the site too, by the way!).

Stay dry (and out of low-lying areas)!

The Sensuality of Great Coffee

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It is no surprise that people love to drink coffee. The café experience touches all of the five senses, deeply.

Sights

We are attracted to beautiful things, and coffee is no exception. A great café encounter begins with an opening glance. Upon entering a shop, our eyes inform us of the quality of the coffee that is to come.

Seated at a corner table, we observe the café surrounding us. A skilled barista works efficiently behind the bar, her hands moving deftly between machine, milk and cup. She gently sways the milk pitcher as she pours its contents into the espresso, casting delicate sepia-toned rosettes on the surface of a latte. Velvety foam rests on top of a cappuccino, blanketing the drink like a down comforter on a cold winter morning. The thick, brown crema on the surface of an espresso glistens with the flavor oils trapped inside it.

On the pour-over bar, steady-handed baristas pour delicate, even streams of water in smooth spiral patterns, coaxing out the complex flavors contained in the mahogany-colored grounds. At one end of the bar, a vacuum pot sits on top of the counter, a throwback to an earlier time in this modern setting. Brought to life by a brilliant orange infrared lamp, tiny bubbles cling to the side of the pot as the water heats up, glowing in the neon light. When the temperature breaks the boiling point, the pot transforms into a cauldron of angry lava, bubbling and bursting on the surface.  The vacuum pot mesmerizes all who gaze upon it and curious customers cannot help but stare in awe.   

Smells

Coffee has a bouquet of fragrances that attract people to it, and a good café delights your olfactory senses with the smell of freshly-ground coffee. The aroma is sweet and fruity, smoky and earthy. When the barista grinds a new batch of beans for the brewer, a wave of aroma washes out across the café. The smell envelopes you, enticing your taste buds in anticipation of the first sip of a freshly-brewed cup.

Sounds

Beans rasp loudly as they fall from brown paper bags into the grinders’ hoppers. The grinder whirrs aggressively, growling out the fresh coffee into the basket below it. A loud thud reverberates through the café as the barista knocks spent espresso out of the portafilter Steam bursts out of the wand into the milk with a thump, then hisses and whooshes as it whips the milk into a cloud of frenzied bubbles.

Nearby, a miniature metal spoon scrapes the side of a ceramic cup, clinking softly as it mixes sugar into espresso. In some cafés, the din of a bulky black roaster dominates, and customers must raise their voices to be heard by the people across the table from them. Lovers longing to whisper secrets or engage in quiet conversation content themselves to communicate with their eyes and expressions. Coffee beans pop and crackle as they flow out of the roaster’s drum, each bean still burning inside. They calm quickly, as fresh air pulled by powerful fans is drawn across them.

Touch

Your hands gently cradle a cup that is too hot to hold securely. The crema of an expertly-poured shot of espresso is silky smooth, lightly coating your mouth with a delicate film of flavor that keeps the memory of the coffee on the tip of your tongue. When you lift a cappuccino to your mouth, your lips note the warm smoothness of the ceramic mug, followed by the billowy softness of the milk. It is like burying your face in the soft, warm crook of a lover’s neck. The flavors of a full-bodied French press coffee swell inside the mouth, continuing to expand even after the coffee has long since disappeared.

Taste

The climax of the coffee experience is the moment when the coffee finally reaches your mouth. Single-origin coffees can be refreshingly simple, with notes of stone fruits or berries or citrus. Blends are more complex, defined by the regions from which they came. Certain coffees are earthy, like the leaves that cover the ground in the fall. Other coffees are chocolaty and luscious. Some remind you of nothing more than coffee, but the flavor brings back something from your past, perhaps time spent with an old friend. Great coffee, whether it is brewed, poured or combined with milk delights the taste buds, sends them into ecstasy.

Sensory and sensual—both words describe the ideal café experience. Coffee satisfies the craving that began when you walked into the café, or perhaps when you rolled out of bed with coffee on your mind. It stimulates your senses and sometimes, even your soul.

Barista theory – Dialing it in

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In conversations with baristas about espresso, one of the things they always seem to be talking about is “dialing it in.” As an expression, the phrase means that they want to make the espresso great. In practice, it means that they are adjusting their equipment to make sure that you get the right combination of grind (particle size) and dose (amount) of coffee. Literally, it involves moving the dial on the grinder towards coarser or finer.

If you stop in at your favorite specialty coffee shop and watch the baristas during a busy period, you will probably notice that they keep filling up the hoppers on top of the grinders, without letting the amount of beans get too low down the sides. A barista at one of my regular coffices explained to me why doing this is so important.

As the weight of the beans pressing down toward the burrs of the grinder changes, so does the grind. When the beans get lighter, the pressure they exert is lower and the grind becomes coarser, so you have to turn down the dial on the grinder. Conversely, if you have a grinder adjusted properly for a hopper with few beans in it and then fill up the hopper, you need to open up the burs a little to compensate for the extra weight. Maintaining a constant level in the hopper helps the barista make consistent shots without having to adjust the grinder each time.

Keeping the hoppers filled is not the only thing the baristas must watch. When the ambient temperature and humidity rise or fall during the day, the grind changes too.  According to another barista, some days the beans just do not want to cooperate, as if they had their own personality. Regardless of what causes the changes, baristas must watch the grind very closely to make sure that their shots stay consistent. They measure the consistency by watching the flow of espresso as it pours out of the machine, by measuring how long the shot takes to pull and also by tasting the occasional shot.

As baristas gain experience, they learn to instinctively adjust their equipment to accommodate changes in the beans and the grind. They start making more consistent shots and drinks and they can do it more quickly. As a customer, you might not be aware of the little details that go into making your drink, but you don’t need to be, because your barista takes care to “dial it in” for you. 

2011 World Barista Championship - Alejandro Mendez, Campeón!

This past weekend, the 2011 World Barista Championships took place in Bogotá, Colombia. For the first time ever, a competitor from a coffee-growing country won first place. El Salvador’s Alejandro Mendez won the competition, beating out the US’ Pete Licata, who finished second after having the highest score in the semi-finals.

Mendez put on an impressive display of coffee knowledge, enthusiasm and creativity. For his signature beverage, Mendez combined flavors from all parts of the coffee plant. He made an infusion from dried coffee flowers (that he had collected himself), one from the mucilage (the fruit pulp), another from the cascara (dried skin from the coffee fruit) and combined all of them with an espresso made from the roasted coffee beans. His goal was to give the judges the entire flavor of the coffee tree. The commentators (yes, the broadcast has commentators, much like golf) thought that this was the first time anyone had combined all of these elements into a beverage (you can see the video here. Mendez’ finals performance starts at about 1:30 into the video and lasts 15 minutes).

If you watch the video of the performance, you will notice Mendez’ deep knowledge of the coffee, his attention to detail and his willingness to try unconventional techniques. Mendez tells the story of how he tested his espresso at the same altitude as Bogota and found that 14 days post-roast was the best day to use it for the competition. He also made a very bold move when he had the judges strain off the crema from the espressos before they drank them. Personally, I question whether this should be allowed, because the crema is an integral part of the espresso experience. However, the judges allowed it, and it certainly helped to make his performance memorable.

Mendez’ win is more impressive because he was competing in English, which did not appear to be his first language. Imagine if the other competitors had to learn the language of the host country in order to compete—that would make it much more challenging. That is what the competitors from non-English-speaking countries have had to do for years.

The 2011 competition was the first time the championships have been held in a coffee-growing country (excluding the small amount of coffee that is grown in Hawaii), which was a big deal for the coffee industry. One of the biggest social issues involved with coffee production/consumption is the fact that for years, coffee producers in developing countries have not benefited from the increase in value of coffee as it was roasted, brewed and sold to customers at high markups.

Coffee-importing countries placed tariffs and quotas on roasted coffee in order to protect their own roasters, which hampered the development of a roasting industry in coffee-growing regions. The system led to much of the value of the coffee crop leaving poorer countries and moving to richer countries.

Today, the specialty coffee industry is trying to make the distribution of the value of the coffee more equitable, and by holding the barista championship in Colombia, the SCAA/SCAE has raised awareness about coffee production and demonstrated its respect for the coffee-growing countries. Hopefully, it will not be another decade before the competition is held in one of these countries, nor will it be surprising when a barista from El Salvador, Colombia, Rwanda or any other coffee producer brings home the top prize.

Congratulations to Alejandro Mendez, the 2011 World Barista Champion.

[If you want  a more complete 2011 WBC wrap-up, complete with lots of photos, visit Barista Magazine’s blog here.]

Barista Profile – Thomas Suprenant

[Over the last several months, I have spent quite a few hours in cafés, learning about coffee and giving my impressions of the cafés. It has been fun. There are so many good cafés and I have been spoiled to be able try so many different (and high-quality) coffees. While I love the adventure, one of the downsides of doing this is that I feel an obligation to keep looking for new cafés all the time, and I never really become a regular at any of them.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to focus more on the people and the stories behind the coffee shops in this city as opposed to the cafés themselves. I am still going to write the occasional café review (there are more cafés that I want to visit), but that will be less of a focus. Instead, I will be working to meet people and talk about a variety of coffee-related things. If you are someone who has a café, is a barista, roasts coffee or just loves coffee and has a unique story to tell, let me know what you are up to and I will share your story here. I would like to interview you and learn more about the great things you are doing (if you are doing something great that is not related to coffee, we can figure out some tie-in, even if we just sit down over a cup of good coffee). The following is the first post in that direction.]

Thomas Suprenant is one of the skilled baristas at Cellar Door Coffee Roasters. In the picture above, he is competing at his first Northwest Regional Barista Championship in January. On my recent stop at the café, Thomas gave me a tour and sat down to tell me a little bit of his own story. Many thanks to Cassie, the other barista on duty, for taking care of the café while we were talking.

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My first trip to the NWRBC

On Friday, January 28^th I attended my first barista championship—the Northwest Regional Barista Championship (NWRBC), held in Tacoma, Washington. If you didn’t know that the NWRBC was happening, don’t feel too bad—I didn’t even know it existed until last fall, when I interviewed Brandon Arends.

Brandon is probably the biggest coffee enthusiast I have ever met—he is as enthusiastic, knowledgeable and opinionated as any of the highly-skilled baristas and café owners I have met around Portland—so I was glad when he agreed to go to Tacoma with me. On the trip up, he told me all about the competition and about the experiences he had volunteering at previous regional and national barista championships.

Before we went up to Tacoma, Brandon got in touch with Marcus Boni, Marketing Director for the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), to see if we could volunteer. Brandon had worked for him at the NWRBC in 2009 when it was held in Portland, and Marcus was happy to let us volunteer. I was excited because volunteering would give me a closer look into the competition.

We left Portland on Friday about 7am, giving us time to stop for coffee along the way. We stopped at Lava Java, near Ridgefield, Washington, which turned out to be a great stop, despite my initial reservations. I’ll share that story with you soon.

The NWRBC is the first step in the path toward the US Barista Championship (USBC). Finalists at the regional level are eligible to compete in the USBC, which you might say is kind of like the Miss America pageant for coffee nerds. The Northwest region covers Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and anyone who lives or works in one of those states is eligible to compete at the NWRBC.

Walking into the competition area at the Tacoma Convention Center felt somewhat familiar, even though it was my first time attending the championship. The large conference room smelled just like walking into a specialty coffee shop in Portland. The sweet, toasty smell of freshly-ground coffee greeted us as we entered, and I saw many faces in the room that I recognized. Some of them had been at Coffee Fest in Seattle and others I had seen or talked to around Portland. One of the first people I recognized was Nathanael May, from Portland Roasting Coffee. He had come up earlier in the week to get certified as a judge for the competition. He told me that the certification test was more difficult than he thought it would be, but he passed and was going to judge the second day of competition.

Brandon and I went over to talk to Marcus, who assigned us to station maintenance. It would be our job clean up the stage after each barista competed and make sure that the espresso machines were immaculate.

The room was a typical conference room, and up front there were three different performance areas. Each of the areas consisted of a Nuova Simonelli espresso machine, an adjoining preparation table and a high presentation table where the four sensory judges would sit and taste the drinks.

Three stations, waiting for competitors

The competition works like this: competitors have 15 minutes of preparation time to set up their area. The baristas set out their tools, pitchers and cups, go over any last-minute adjustments on the grinders and set out any other props they have for the presentation. The competition is a combination of skill and style, so many of the set-ups were fairly elaborate. The baristas set out napkins and saucers for each of the sensory judges and many of the place settings resembled that of a fancy restaurant.

One interesting place setting

At the end of the 15-minute prep time, the judges come out and shake hands with the competitor before taking their positions. Each competitor is judged by a total of seven people: two technical judges, four sensory judges and a head judge. The technical judges hover around the grinders and espresso machine as the baristas grind the coffee, pull shots and steam and pour the milk. They are looking at all of the little details that go into making the drinks. Baristas are expected to dose and tamp the coffee correctly without wasting coffee, flush the group heads before pulling shots and to keep the stations clean while they work. The judges closely watch all of these.

The four sensory judges sit at the presentation table and it is their job to evaluate the beverages. They stir, smell and taste the drinks to evaluate their consistency, balance, mouth feel and overall quality. They also judge the competitors on their presentation skills and enthusiasm for the coffee.

The sensory judges, listening attentively to Bryan Arndt, from Coeur D'Alene, Idaho

The head judges have the role of making sure that the sensory judges and technical judges are judging in a consistent manner. They taste all of the drinks so that they have an idea of how the judges should score the drinks. If one judge has a score that is abnormally high or low, they can correct the score. Head judges have a lot to watch, but their scores do not count toward the competitor’s score.  They essentially referee the other judges.

As you might imagine, there is a long list of technical and sensory specifications that the judges are looking for (If you’re interested, the rules and regulations for the Barista Championship can be found here). It takes both technical skills and presentation skills to be a champion. According to the USBC rules, a champion barista is someone who:

1. Has mastery of technical skills, craftsmanship, communication skills and who is passionate about their profession, in addition to service.
2. Has a broad understanding of coffee knowledge and serves high quality beverages.
3. May serve as a role model and a source of inspiration for others.

In other words, a barista has to have the skills and passion necessary to be an ambassador for the specialty coffee industry. That is the overarching goal of these championships—to promote the craft of specialty coffee and elevate the standards of coffee as a beverage.

The baristas have 15 minutes to make a total of 12 drinks: four single espressos, four cappuccinos and four specialty drinks they have created on their own. They have to work quickly and efficiently as they describe to the judges what they are doing. The limited amount of time adds pressure to the competition. A large red LED timer is posted at each station and during the competition, you can feel the tension in the room rising as each barista nears the allotted 15 minutes. Most of the baristas finished on time, but there were a few who didn’t quite make it. They generally got hung up when they made their specialty beverages too complex.

To give you a better idea of the way the competition goes, I shot some video of Ashley Rauch, from Sterling Coffee Roasters in Portland, explaining her espresso selection to the judges. She was competing in her first competition and was a little nervous, but she did a nice job (and finished within the time limits). You can see how she put a lot of thought into her presentation. Take note of her descriptions of the complex aromas and flavors that the judges can expect when they taste the espresso.

Being a barista is truly an art. I like to joke about the tattoos and interesting fashion that baristas are known for, but when it comes down to it, a barista’s skills make a huge difference in the way your drink tastes. They are the final step in a very long, complex process that brings the coffee from where it is grown to your cup. As Brandon said to me, if baristas think about how complex the process is to produce high-quality coffee beans, they should feel an obligation to prepare it in the best manner possible. As consumers, we should appreciate their efforts.

Brandon, making sure that the machine is spotless

About half way through the competition, I was re-assigned to busing tables. After each round of drinks was judged by the sensory judges, I had to help remove the drinks from the table. It was more fun than station maintenance because I had a closer view of the baristas in action and could more easily taste the drinks that the baristas made.

Speaking of tasting the drinks, I probably tried about 40 different beverages throughout the day. Even though I had just a sip of each one, all of the sips added up and by the end of the competition, I was floating around in a caffeine-induced haze.

The drinks I tried varied in quality. On our way up to Tacoma, Brandon and I had talked at length about what went into making a good cappuccino. He told me that the espresso needs to be able to stand up to the milk and create balance. Some of the more floral single-origin espressos tend to disappear when they are mixed with milk, making the cappuccino unbalanced. At the competition, I probably tasted 15 different cappuccinos and now I understand what he was talking about. Some of them had very little coffee flavor, while others were much more balanced between the milk and the coffee. That’s one of the reasons that people like Stumptown’s Hair Bender Blend. When it is used to make a latte or cappuccino, you can still taste the coffee.

Watching the competition, you could tell that some of the baristas really enjoyed the spotlight. Confidence and a flair for performing were definitely two characteristics that separated the better competitors from the rest. On the first day of competition, Laila Ghambari of Stumptown Seattle and Ryan Wilbur of Stumptown Portland were the two competitors who seemed to most enjoy performing, so it was no surprise to me when they made the finals.

While most of the competitors at a competition work for a café, there are a few independents that compete too. One independent was Rick Cox, a self-described “super-passionate home barista” from Auburn, Washington. He developed a routine and competed at the NWRBC without support from a café. He didn’t make the finals, but hats off to him for having the courage to try. Becoming a competitive barista requires lots of practice, and the baristas who spend hours each day at their cafés honing their skills naturally have an advantage over non-affiliated baristas.

Rick Cox, at the beginning of his presentation

Even though it is a competition, the baristas are generally friendly and supportive of one another. They want each other to do well, because they know that ultimately, they are all trying to do the same thing—to help spread the word that producing specialty coffee is an art form. It is not something that can  just come out of a machine (McCafé, anyone?). It takes skill, practice and pride in the craft to become a great barista and that is why when you go to a great café you should always be appreciative of what the baristas are trying to do. They work hard to help you experience the coffee in the same way that they do.

After watching and helping with nineteen different performances over six hours, I left the convention center tired, but thankful that I had been a volunteer. It was much better to be an active participant than just a spectator. I learned a lot about what it takes to become a top-notch barista and enjoyed my front-row view. Next year, when the regional competition comes to Portland, I may try to become a judge. It would be a great way to learn more about this thing called specialty coffee, because once you start learning, you don’t want to stop.

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PDX Baristas in Action at NWRBC

I spent most of the day on Friday at the Northwest Regional Barista Championship in Tacoma. Brandon Arends and I went up and worked as volunteers, and we had quite a trip.  Portland was well-represented on the first day, with 10 of the 19 competitors coming from PDX. In between cleaning stations and busing tables, I managed to get a few action shots of Portland's finest.  You will probably recognize some of them from some of your favorite cafés.

Unfortunately, I did not make it to Saturday's preliminaries or Sunday's finals, so I missed the five Portland baristas who competed on Saturday (including the eventual champion, Sam Purvis from Coava). I'll have more of a recap tomorrow. 

Ashley Rauch, from Sterling Coffee Roasters, competing in her first Regional Barista Championship.

Kelly Kieft from Cellar Door Coffee Roasters

Kyle Salmi, Albina Press, waiting patiently for the judges

Marty Lopes, Barista. His boss, at far left, looks pretty nervous.

Ryan Wilbur of Stumpton put on quite a show. He ended up finishing second overall, by 0.5 points.

Ray Penrod of Public Domain was stylin'

Devin Chapman, Coava Coffee Roasters, explaining how the cherries and blood oranges blend well with his coffee. In addition to competing in the Barista Championship, Devin won the first-ever Regional Brewing Competition.

Jenny Dorsey, from Case Study Coffee, showed off her cider-making skills in addition to her barista skills.

Adam McGovern, from Sterling Coffee Roasters, holds court.

Thomas Surprenant, from Cellar Door, was the last competitor of day 1. His hops-infused espresso signature beverage was one highlight of the day.

Why Your Lattes Are Inconsistent

A friend of mine recently asked why the quality of her lattes varies so much between cafés. Why is it, she asked, that when you go to one café, the coffee is delicious, but when you go to another, it’s barely drinkable? The short answer is that not all cafés are created equal. However, that doesn’t really explain much, so I would like to discuss what goes into making a great (or not-so-great) latte.

Before finishing this article, I talked to a couple different baristas to get some of their opinions. One of the baristas said that “once [the cafés] are in the big leagues, you’re going to get a good latte, and it just comes down to which barista makes it the way you like it.”

He was referring to the better cafés in Portland when he made that statement. While what he said may be true, not all cafés are in the ‘big leagues,’ and no matter where you get your latte, the quality is still determined by four main factors. These are the three ingredients—coffee, water and milk—plus the barista, who brings them all together. The quality of these four components is what determines how good your latte is, and as you will see, there are lots of places where things can go wrong.

Made with love

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