In the deepest darkest depths of Norway, lies a cafe owned by a half man half dragon.

No, it’s not Trogdor. He goes by the name of Wendelboe, Tim Wendelboe. I may have lied about the half dragon part as well… But he is the World Barista Champion of ‘04!

I had only had Tim Wendelboe’s coffee once at Seattle CoffeeFest ‘09. It was a Kenyan coffee (I can’t remember the farm) it was one of the best Kenyan’s I’ve had to date. Visiting Norway for the first time, I got the chance to visit the Tim Wendelboe cafe.

Meet Tim Varney, Wendelboe’s Head Roaster. He gave us a quick tour of the cafe, the 12k Probat, and the cupping lab.

The Probat is right in the middle of the cafe, where they roast 3 days per week.

The cupping lab has 2 single group espresso machines: a GS3 and a FB-70 (the only FB-70 single group ever made).

He gave us a taste of their new crop Esmeralda – need I say more?

It’s very low-key surrounded by some very interesting architecture.

Time for  Wendelspro.

One of the baristas at the TW cafe, Chris Kolbu (Norwegian Barista Champion of 2008) served up a delicious shot of a SOE Honduras and some weird drink I have never had. It was a double espresso and a double espresso blended with a tiny bit of cream, really nice texture.

…He had a little misfire…

The space was a lot smaller than I imagined with very comfortable, but limited seating.

Brent says it’s BA. You figure it out.

Competitor list and link for the live feed/twitter.

Competition starts at 10.15 am and is to resume at 1:30pm after the lunch break.  These times are of course subject to change.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/2009-western-regional-canadian-barista-championship-victoria-august-29-30

For all you twitterers, follow WRCBC09 to get the updates on what’s going down.

This Sunday, there will be a new world barista champion.  Stephen Morrissey of Ireland’s year long reign is up, and now it’s someone else’s turn.

52 countries will be represented in competition Thursday thru to Saturday, with the top 6 competing again on Sunday in the finals.

Let me start by saying I really don’t know anything about most of the competitors.  I watched Michael Philips compete at the USBCs a month ago.  I hear Carl Sara is a force to be reckone’d with (and has the experience.)  I imagine Gwilym Davies (from the UK) will rank pretty high, too, having much access to James Hoffman and all.  Besides that, I’m pretty much in the dark.

There is one thing I know though:

There is a barista who has come 3rd once, and 2nd twice on the world stage.

8 months and 1 day ago, he won the Western Regionals here in Vancouver.
4 months and 2 weeks ago, he won the Canadian Nationals in Montreal.
Tomorrow, at 3:43pm in Atlanta, Georgia, (12:43 Vancouver time) he will be competing yet again, representing Canada.

Still don’t know who?  I’ll give you a hint.

_ _ m m _  _ _ c c _ l _ .

Here’s another hint for the visually inclined.

My guess is that he takes the title, once and for all.

I don’t like saying “Good luck”, because I don’t believe in it.  The existence of luck implies that hard work, dedication, and passion are not enough.  It implies that there is some kind of uncontrollable outside force that governs who wins (or loses).

No one wins competitions at the world level because of luck – would you ever called Michael Jordan lucky?

So, Sammy, if you’re reading this, I will finish by wishing you no luck.

You don’t need it one bit.

I’ll be watching and cheering you on from my laptop screen.

You can watch all the action live, starting tomorrow morning (Thursday), by clicking here.

Finally.

For starters, on Monday night, the day before the competition – I found out that 2 things had indeed broken on the flight over, despite my previous thoughts. One was a shot glass and the other was one of my signature drink glasses. I had an extra one anyway though, no biggie. About an hour later I would open my bag to have 2 more shot glasses spill out and shatter all over the floor. Again, nothing the dollar store couldn’t fix.

While you are setting up/ unpacking your own things at these contests you can’t help but glance around at what the other competitors have in their arsenal and visually I definitely had the least amount of things. It must have been a nightmare bringing over some of the things the other competitors had. Having more or less things has nothing to do with anything, mind you. The guys from Fratello had this gigantic crate that reminded me a lot of something the Coyote receives whenever he orders anything from ACME to catch Roadrunner. It was sweet, but I forgot to get a picture of it. All the brothers from Fratello are good guys, and hilarious. Joel ended up placing 3rd overall, which is more than respectable. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some Fratello Roasted Beans used in Vancouver sometime this next year.

Back to Monday – each barista gets half hour to try out their espresso on the actual machines they’ll be using, make sure all the grinders are working, stuff like that. I got to try to my espresso for the first time since roasting it. It was everything I hoped for. I used the same blend as the regionals for my espresso and capps: Harar + Guatemala, 60/40. For my signature drink I had a single origin Ethiopian Yirgacheffe.

After the practice session I had dinner with some relatives who live in Montreal. When we got back to our hotel, I still needed a blank cd to put my music on. There was something incredibly hopeless about walking around downtown Montreal at midnight looking for somewhere to buy a blank cd. Then it started to rain, just in case the moment wasn’t cliche enough already. In a bitter but better contrast, I also needed oranges for my signature drink, but since Montreal is open 24 hours for food, finding those at random morning hours was not a problem. Mission half accomplished. I gave up and decided I’d find it in the morning. Fast forward a few more hours of speech practicing in the hotel lobby and it’s bed time, circa 4 am. (Reminds me of the regionals.) I Requested a wake up call from the lobby, and set about 4 alarms on my phone for 8. I was set to compete at 11:15, but we were told to be an hour early, and I still had to find that blank cd somewhere.

Good night.

8 am arrived fast. I found my cd up the street (much easier when stores are open), burnt the tunes, and made the trek on the metro over with John, my cousin, and a friend of ours who used to work at crema who is now living in Montreal – Eugene. Somehow, I arrived really late and I was walking into the convention center at 10:45. After finally getting my pass that allows you entrance to the show, I was stopped at the entrance by security saying I needed a blue sticker to actually go inside. Really? Not only was I competing, but I had even talked with that exact security guard the day before during the practice session, we knew each other! Abused.

At about 10:55 I got in, and dealt with my next problem – my grinder. Since I was using 2 coffees I was going to use a Mahlkonig Twin grinder, borrowed from the Mahlkonig booth. I won’t bother getting into the details – but I ended up having to make a last minute decision to use 2 K-30s instead of the twin.

My prep time went ok – timing both grinders definitely took a good chunk of the time, (I used 2 different espressos) but I managed to get everything ready. I forgot my apron at the hotel though – Oops! Cue in Anthony, who ran off to lend me his without even giving me time to say ‘please’. He ended up winning the ‘Mr(s.) Congeniality Award’ at the end of the event, and it was much deserved. It’s chosen by the competing baristas and is given to the nicest/most helpful/any other good adjectives you can think of barista. So, apron tied, espresso dialed in – I was set to go.

I thought it went pretty well. I did everything I wanted to, said everything that I wanted to say, and really just had fun with it. I’m actually quite pleased. Perhaps I took the whole thing a bit too light hearted? Either way, I had a lot of fun served up the best coffee I could. I ended up finishing 7th, one spot out from advancing to the finals. Talk about a bitter sweet finish, (all puns aside).

I found out after my performance that back at home in Vancouver my parents had been projecting the live stream on our wall (we use a projector for a menu at crema) and played the sound through our speakers and everything. Since it was 8:15 Vancouver time lots of customers were coming in and out and throughout the week I’ve been getting a lot comments and compliments. I was surprised (and humbled) to hear how many even stayed to watch the whole performance, that was really cool of them.

To summarize the rest of the trip, I will regurgitate the rest of my thoughts in paragraph form, with no particular order.

Jean-Francois Leduc.

I was backstage cleaning up my stuff while he was performing, so I missed out on seeing him live. Having later watched it online, I really regret that. It was a masterpiece, really. It’s funny from the moment he starts, (“good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen of the jury”) all the way up to the end when he calls “time”. You can watch it here. We made the trek over to his cafe, Caffe In Gamba, a couple days after the competition and it was incredible. In Gamba also won the krups cup for Montreal this year. Johnny called the cafe, ‘an Ode to Coffee.’ They have like 9 different espressos on hand, from all different roasters across the continent, and he uses 2 different blends at all times on the bar, changing them daily. Random coffee accessories and products are for sale throughout the store, and the best part is, all the different espresso he uses is fully available for purchase. It’s the first cafe I’ve ever been where you can buy Intelligentsia, Vivace, 49th, PTs, Zoka (to name a few) all in the same place. He sat down with us for about an hour and we had a great time talking. Here’s a few pictures of the cafe.

cool.

I met a ton of awesome people, many of whom I’ve only known from reading their blogs, seeing them in pictures, or watching them carry 4 espressos at the same time over to a table of judges during the world championships. Speaking of the latter, seeing/meeting Stephen Morrissey was really cool. (He’s the current world barista champion). He helped me get my hopper off the grinder during practice sessions when I thought it was stuck. Too bad it wasn’t stuck at all, and all he did was simply twist it off. I wouldn’t be offended or surprised if he second guessed my competing in the nationals after that. I know I did. Ha. I also met Brent Fortune. He’s pretty cool, but doesn’t have twitter yet, so there is some more room for cool if he wants. My understanding is that he trains and certifies all the judges before they are allowed to actually compete. Pretty sweet gig.

Funny enough, one of my most memorable moments of the contest was when Alistair took control of one of the demo Simonellis and pulled shots for everyone for about an hour.

John Neate was there too, and the two of them must have been having some kind of funny conversation.

Anthony Benda.

You’re watching his performance and pretty much laughing the whole time. Not because of his lack of skills, on the contra-re, mon amis! Rather because he’s throwing out jokes left and right not only about himself but about the judges too, all the while making the finals and finishing number 6 in the country. Boo ya! He just opened up Myriade (the cafe from the last post) 5 days after this. What a week.

As promised, here is my soundtrack. Joel Armstrong mixed it for me, just like in the regionals. He’s a local Vancouver DJ that plays around town, and if you like electronic music definitely check out his shows if you’re in the city. The tracks are:

Kids with Guns (hot chip remix) – Gorillaz
Boy From School – Hot Chip
We Share Our Mother’s Health (ratatat remix) – The Knife
Magic Kraut – Teddy Bears.

Download it here. It’s best played loud, like all good music should be.

Spencer did amazing.

I’ve seen Spencer’s routine a lot. I was a tech judge during the JJ In House Competitions back in June, and we practiced together for both the regionals and nationals. His performance in the finals was easily the best one that I’ve seen in all that time. Hands down. An amazing finish of 2nd place, behind first place by only 7.5 points. He roasted his own coffee, and mine. I think I would have still been testing blends if it wasn’t for his help. Thanks for everything. Next year. (I’d link but I can’t find his finals performance on ustream, are the finals not there?)

The picture above was taken just seconds before they announced the winner. You can feel the anxiety just from looking at them.

And so, Sammy won again. Can you believe that? 4 time national champion. And he did so with a ridiculous amount of pressure. Everyone and their mom was watching to see if he has still got it. Ladies and gentlemen, he does. Congratulations again Sammy. And hey – you might as well take the world title this year while you’re at it. We’ll be watching.

Krups gave everyone competing a grinder and a home espresso machine.

The entire event was recorded and you can watch it here.

Next years nationals are in Vancouver, by the way.

Until then…

A quick update.

I’ve arrived in Montreal, complete with all my bags and equipment. Thanks to my level 10 tetris skills, nothing was broken – or even shifted – during flight.

I met up with Spencer at Main St. JJ to join in the roasting of our competition blends. We hand sorted them after the matter too, which I found very fun oddly enough. It’s kind of like an adult version of “Where’s Waldo”. A Friday roast date gives us optimum day 4 and day 5 espresso for the contest. It’s what we used in the Regionals, no point in changing something that’s been proven.

My carry on bag had 2 things in it: My headphones, and my coffee. (I heard it gets super cold underneath the plane where the other bags are shipped and I didn’t want to risk any kind of damage to it, obviously.)

This suitcase smells amazing now, and I bet the overhead stowaway on the airplane where I put it smells great too – you’re welcome West Jet.

I stopped by the Elysian Lab on Friday and picked up the espresso and cappuccino cups I’ll be using. (They are the ones that are used in the cafe.) Had a nice chat with Robert and Matthew while there as well.

I went to Ethical Bean on Tuesday and made a list of everything I need in my trusty Moleskin. I can say in full truth that preparing and remembering everything is probably harder than the actual competing part. Just when you think you’ve got everything, you realize you have forgotten your tablecloth, or extra water glass for the head judge, or something of the sort. Preparing things was never my forte either though.

My music is all ready to go – mixed into a perfect 15 minute track just like last time by Joel. I heard it for the first time yesterday and it’s awesome. I’m really excited to hear it played through the speakers in it’s full glory. It’s different than before, but still super fun and upbeat. I’ll be putting it up for download, just like the last time, as soon as the competition is over. (Wouldn’t want it to get leaked now would I?)

I think I may have mentioned this before, but I believe music is something that way too many people underestimate the power of. It has the ability to make us feel the entire spectrum of emotion, and you can make any situation that much better if you are able to use it to your advantage. The same goes for the opposite. Sure, there is no actual “box” that the judges tick off if they like your music or not, but is it just a coincidence that both of the last 2 world champions have had a really really really good upbeat music accompanying their performance?

As a side note, I regularly play James Hoffman and Stephen Morrissey’s music while I train – you could say it’s sort of like the Rocky Theme of coffee for me.

Sammy was on the same flight as me.

Also, I will be updating tomorrow night (Monday) with a link to a website that you will be able to watch the entire competition live on, for free. Full with audio and everything. I’ll know what time I compete by then as well, and will post that too. So be sure to check back.

Lastly – my bag carrying all my equipment was really heavy – to the point that we were debating if it would go over the allowed 50 lbs. per bag. I braced myself as I put it on the airport scale. Having to remove anything from it would have been chaos, as it was all in there safe and snug.

Check it out:

50.4 lbs.

A sign of things to come?

That’s french for ‘The Eye of The Tiger’, which is Rocky for ‘It’s time to get pumped.’

As the first week of October comes to an end, with it comes a chill not only in the form of a temperature drop, but from the looming presence of the oh-so-close nationals as well.  I literally got chills today when I thought of something new to add to my performance while practicing tonight.

So yeah, you could say I’m pretty excited.

The score sheets arrived last week and I finally got to look at what went wrong – and more importantly what went right – back in August.

Reading the judge’s comments and scores was enjoyable, and it was nice to see so many extra comments and helpful suggestions from the judges along the sides of the papers. From my 2 days of judging the JJ Bean In House (and only the technical side of it at that) I know how fast things move and how mentally draining it can be, so kudos to them for doing that.

The sensory judges only had good things to say for the most part – while my technicals were a bit lacking.  That’s cool though – it’s a much easier fix than my espresso would be.  Plus, there are a few rule changes now that put even less emphasis on the technical score.

Spencer and I have been doing lots of training together, and it’s been as fun as it has been educational.  Some late nights over at Powell St. are definitely in the cards, and some even later nights here in Crema.  Which reminds me, if you’re ever in the West Van area late at night and you drive by crema you might see me through the windows talking to no one.  I’m not crazy, or on a bluetooth headset, but rather just talking to an invisible audience and judging panel.  It’s all part of it.

I’ve got some new things planned – one of which I don’t think has ever been done in competition, and another that’s just new to my first routine –  and as well some old things that are tried and true.

My signature drink has one new twist, too – but I’m not telling what.
 

It’s been confirmed, so I can announce it publicly now.

I’m competing in the nationals.

Someone has dropped out, and since I placed next, I get to go.

I am super pumped to get to compete again, and you can be sure I will be doing so in a high energy fashion.

Funny enough as well, a competitor has dropped out of the latte art contest on Friday, and since John was next in rankings, he gets to go. I will remind everyone when the date is closer, but it’s Friday at Vancouver Public Library.

And finally, I just found out today that fellow friend, barista and blogger Robert Csar has changed his website to www.robertcsar.ca. Note the change from .com to .ca. A lot of people thought he deleted his blog for many rumored reasons. This is false. His current post titled “a dirty day” is one of those that you read and go, ” Man, I wish I wrote that. ” It’s wonderfully refreshing to say the least.

Here’s to second chances;

over and out.

There is really so much to say about the competition that I’m just going to try and recap what was going on the days leading up to, and including, Thursday.

This is a longer post than normal, so if you don’t have time to read it all because you should be working but instead you are reading cleanhotdry (good for you) you can just scroll down to near the bottom where it says, “Thursday” and go from there.

Also, I apologize for taking so long to update. I’m currently on a road trip in California and staring at a computer screen in the car sort of defeats the purpose of the whole thing. But without further adieu -

Monday: 3 days until doomsday.

This was the last day that ECM (the local nuova simonelli dealership) was going to be allowing competitors to come by the store and practice on the actual machines that were going to be used in the competition, so obviously I went. It was the first chance I had to go, and I ended up spending a couple hours there, just becoming fluent with the machine and such. The beauty of the machine (an aurellia) was that I literally walked up to it and had figured out how to use the entire machine within the time it takes to pull a shot. Super easy, and completely ergonomic I might add, unlike a certain machine I know, *cough marzocco *cough*. The guys over at ECM are pretty funny, and helpful too. A hilarious mix of old and new school Italians.

On Monday night I ended up going to Crema to practice. At 3 am, I was still standing behind the bar, talking to an imaginary table of judges just working on my opening speech, restarting it over and over anytime I made even one mistake in it.

Bed time? 3:30am.

Tuesday: 2 days left.

On Tuesday I was out most of the day finding the last bunch of things you forget you need until 2 days before the competition. Things like water glasses, rags, sugar bowls, that kinda stuff.

At 4 o’clock I had a quick 3 hour shift at crema, and after that I headed over to the JJ Lab on Powell Street. Spencer suggested a few days earlier that we meet and do a full performance together in front of a panel of fake judges (fake judges will from here on be referred to as “smudges”) and go over each others presentation and see what we can fix. Looking back, it probably was the single best thing that either of us did in preparation for this thing. Navid, John, my dad, and Annie (Spencer’s wife) played the part as the smudges and at the end of it we all dissected and discussed each other’s performances. What a huge help these 5 were. I don’t even want to think of what would have happened on Thursday if this session didn’t take place.

We finally got out of Powell at 12:30am – 4.5 hours after arrival. Naturally, we went over to commercial to grab some pizza from Uncle Fatih’s before calling it a night.

Back at home, my dad and I debated on aspects of my opening speech for literally over an hour. This would also prove to be hugely beneficial.

I should also mention that Monday night and all of Tuesday I dressed in the exact outfit I was going to be performing in on Thursday, right down to the very socks and shoes.

Why, you ask?

To get into character. And to get used to the heat and mobility issues. (You can obviously see in the pictures that you are expected to dress nice, at the least, while performing.)

Bed time? 3:45am

In a side note, I was still pretty wired from all the espresso during the practice session that I started to write a blog. I woke up the next morning to a pretty much blank post with the sentence “ddddddddddddddddddd” in it.

I guess I was more tired than I had thought.

Wednesday: 1 last day remaining.

Wednesday was long. Really long. I got to Heritage Hall at about noon with the intention to help set up and get some practice in. They didn’t need much help setting up, and I ended up hanging out with Robert Csar for pretty much the whole day.

At one point, while waiting for the machines to be set up, Robert suggested we just walk a block over to Main Street JJ and dial in our espresso there. For those who have been to Main Street JJ (probably most of you) you know how busy it can get there, and Wednesday was not a let down. At one point though, something rather fun happened.

Picture the following: Robert and I pulling shots on one machine, with our own individual grinders and espresso. No more than a few feet over is Mike Laroy and Ryan “the Bish” on the other 3 group marzocco, serving the masses, while Grady is hanging about and then Spencer walks behind the bar as well. While all this is going on, Sammy and Mike Young (current Canadian champ) along with 2 other friends of theirs come in and order 4 espressos. In a matter of minutes, Main Street JJ had 10 of Vancouver’s finest all huddled around 2 bars. It’s the most barista power I’ve ever seen in one cafe.

We headed back over to the Hall and Robert and I shared a simonelli and did a few dry runs together and things were looking pretty good. The espresso was shooting/tasting great, and once again, the machine was so easy to use.

At about 8 o’clock I finally left and headed straight to crema, to what I knew was going to be lungho of a night. And it was. My brothers and my dad were at crema until about 2am. We were mainly talking about my opening speech, and they acted as smudges while I poured water for them over and over. We also did a full run through of my whole performance again.

When they left, my brother Chris stayed with me and that’s when the real fun began. Fun, that is, if you like making objects look really shiny and clean, and making check lists of all the things you need. Fast forward another 2 hours and 15 minutes, with a crate full of equipment packed so perfectly it would make a tetris champion proud, and it was time for departure. At 4:15am, we left crema.

Bed time? 4:30am.

Thursday: Time for our feature presentation.

The competition started at 10, and while I had planned to go and watch the whole event, I just couldn’t possibly do that. I was way too tired, and still wanted to practice the delivery of my speech. I ended up arriving at the Hall at around quarter to 1, just in time to see the signature drink from the last barista before the intermission.

Did I mention how hot it was?

Unfortunately I missed Robert’s performance in the morning, but I did catch Spencer’s, who was 3 before me. He nailed his performance, but ended up going 15 seconds over time. You lose a point a second when you go overtime, which doesn’t sound so bad at first. That is until you realize that there are 4 judges, and you lose 1 point from each of them. For those of you who don’t like math, that equals 60 points, so it’s kind of a big deal. No worries though – it was still solid.

Prep Time:

freshly poured antipodes from a press.

After Spencer, I had to start setting up all my equipment in the back during the next performance so that it was nicely organized. You only have 15 minutes to set up your bar before the performance, Any time wasted doing something unnecessary like unwrapping things or looking for a certain something could prove fatal, especially if it throws you off mentally. You need all your concentration to focus on the performance and the coffee, not on where your whisk is.

Sammy Piccolo was the barista before me, and he is a man that is no stranger to the competition. He’s placed 3rd, and 2nd twice – in the world championships, that is. For better or for worse, I didn’t watch him perform as during his time it was my 15 minute prep. My presentation was pretty simple, and built around a “less is more” theme, so I didn’t have to worry too much about setting my area up in time. My biggest concern prior to the event was that I wouldn’t be able to dial in my espresso (set the espresso grind) and set up in time, but this turned out to be a complete non-issue. As a matter of fact, to be safe I had dialed in my espresso a couple hours earlier on the test machine and I didn’t even have to adjust a thing when I went up on stage. I even had time to sit at the judges table and take a view from their perspective to see if there was something I was missing, and to make sure it looked good aesthetically. It did.

I was off to a promising start, feeling good.

The Presentation:

I remember my time starting, and the mic cutting out a bit during my opening speech. No worries. Almost everything else though, is a blur. My hands were a bit shaky at first (rare for me), and it was especially noticeable when I picked up the espresso cups for the first time, but after that I just got into a zone and any nervousness I had disappeared along with my shakes. I free poured my trad capps while standing and talking in front of the judges, James Hoffman style – but with the underhanded Billy Wilson grip.

Unconventional? Perhaps. But that’s what I liked about it.

My signature drink – *deep breath* a 2oz white chocolate orange zested whipping cream breve macchiato with (proper) foam and nutmeg – went over perfectly. I named it “the punch line” but I didn’t say so in the performance. I heard only good things about the drink from everyone who tried it, with one judge saying it was best of show. I was really happy about the drink, it was something that I had worked on with Liza, Crema’s all star baker, for quite some time. It was also inspired from a chocolate I had over at Mink’s cafe, a white chocolate lemon ganache. If you are ever down near West Hastings (863 W Hastings to be exact) stop at Mink’s, buy one in combination with a clover’d coffee, and just try to tell me they weren’t meant to be consumed together.

I finished with 45 seconds left, and if you include my 2 minute opening speech, I really made all the drinks in a net time of 12.5 minutes, so I was moving pretty fast. I used the left over time to clean up the bar and take pretty much everything off my prep table as well, leaving an almost spotless area.

At the end of it, I couldn’t believe it was over. Nothing more than a blur.

Once the time finished, I was pumped. A few fellow competitors, along with plenty of friends and family in the crowd, congratulated me and sent kind words my way. I also got interviewed by a guy with a video camera for the multicultural channel. I’m assuming everyone did, but I have no idea. If you see me on tv though, do tell.

The hall was also full when I was up on stage – partly because lots had come to see Sammy, who was before me, and also because I was the last to go.

And The Winner Is…

Barrett Jones, the MC for the second half of the day, called up all the competitors to the stage, and there we stood. Starting at 11th place and moving lower, he called names. It was tedious. Every time he spoke you were just hoping not to hear your name – and for a quite a bit, I didn’t. The top 3 move on, keep in mind, and when we got to the top 4, the following were left standing:

Spencer from JJ Bean, Colter Jones from 49th Parallel, Sammy Piccolo from Artigiano, and yours truly from Crema.

Then, just abruptly as this sentence, my name was called, and it was over.

I ended up placing 4th, coming up 1 short of my goal of the top 3. Spencer came in 3rd, with Colter (who has also gone to the worlds) placing 2nd. The big winner of the day was Sammy. Now don’t get me wrong, there is no shame in finishing behind these guys, each of them are top notch in my books, but I would’ve loved to have gone to the nationals.

Next year? We’ll see. For now, big congratulations to the top 3, especially fellow friend Spencer.

More than one of the judges come up to talk and congratulate me after, and that was pretty cool of them. One in particular shared some rather encouraging words.

And silly me, I didn’t introduce my espresso blend to you – It was a two coffee blend made up of half light roasted Guatemalan Palou (spelling?) and half Ethiopian Harar. Super simple, fun, and different. Lots of blueberry. I called it fifty-fifty espresso, not even so much for lack of a better name, but because to me it represents the simplicity of the blend, as well as the obvious fifty fifty mix of coffee. I like it most in a poured trad capp, but it’s cool as an espresso too. I said to the judges that for me it was an espresso you would have when you feel like changing things up, as oppose to something you would have everyday. We might start using it at Crema for our short drinks, so be on the look for that too. I’ll make mention of it in a post if we do end up doing that.

I got another sweet tamper for plcing in the top 6 from Reg Barber, who was in attendance. It says Western Regionals on it. Yea buddy!

My music was a mix of 4 songs from a group called Ratatat, whom are flippin’ sweet. My brother’s friend/dj Joel Armstrong actually mixed them for me, and you can download the mix free, fast and easy by clicking here. The run time was condensed to 15 minutes and 3 seconds – perfect for the competition. I had more than a few people comment on the music, so take it and enjoy. Play it during a rush in your cafe. Loud.

And that is that. Thanks to everyone who helped out prior to the competition, and to those who came and watched. Between family, friends, crema, and JJ – there was a whole lot of people involved.

Keep in mind that I had been preparing since the end of May for this competition. By reading this you might get the impression that I only trained for 3 days. That would be false. Like usual, all the little things seemed to just fall into place at the last moment.

The nationals look like they are going to be pretty awsome – much success to the top 3 over in Montreal this October.

The official event flyer, received today.