USBC '09

a.k.a. the United States Barista Championships 2009 for short.

On Thursday Johnny, Sayaka and I drove down to Portland to stay the weekend and watch the United states barista championships.

We stayed with the many faced Brent Fortune, who is the World Barista Championship Judge Calibrator (the WBCJC), owner of crema in Portland (not associated with us…yet), an ambassador for coffee all around the world, and also a scrap chick. John and I met Brent back at the Canadian nationals in October and we’ve kept in touch since then. Thanks Brent, you went above and beyond as a host.

crema.us uses Stumptown and always has 2 espressos on tap – a blend and a single origin. Sweet.

Mike Young, (the Canadian champ from last year) was tech judging and staying with us as well, which made a for a lot of Vancouver in Brent’s house.

Mike was picked to judge the finals too. Lucky!

The convention center played host as the battle arena, with a whopping 52 competitors. Compared to the Canadians where it is around 20 people, give or take (I think this year it was only 14 or 16) it’s pretty shocking at first. Going ‘backstage’ to the prep area to see all the competitor’s equipment was like walking into Santa’s Toy Shop for coffee – every type of grinder, coffee, and dishware imaginable was there and it seemed endless. I couldn’t even capture it with the lens I was using at the time, so you’ll just have to close your eyes and do your best to imagine it.

Bikes To Rwanda put on this giant coffee crawl/bike tour that had you go through 12 of Portland’s best cafes over the course of 2 days (6 each day), where all the coffee was free and at each spot a regional champion from around the states was the barista pulling all the shots. So cool. We arrived on Friday, so we caught the 2nd day and joined about 20 others on the crawl. (Lawrence, if you’re reading this and drooling, know that John and I said to each other how much you would have loved this.  You too Wes.)

We ended up going to Ristretto, Fresh Pot, Albina Press, Extracto, and Stumptown.

Needless to say, every time we arrived at a cafe a sea of plaid filed in and the chaos began.

The baristas remained unnerved.

Below is Scott Lucey, who ended up placing 3rd overall. His signature drink was called ‘liquid swords’, named after a Wu-Tang Clan album. I love when people have cool names or inspirations for their drinks.

Actually if you look at the espresso machine to his right you’ll notice there is 5 cappuccino cups lined up on top of the bar waiting to be made. Everyone was ordering short drinks. Everyone was also grabbing the wrong one half the time, which was funny.

Fresh Pot had this really cool old weight scale, while Extracto had bags and bags piled on top of each other.

Stumptown of course had a record player. (record players are so hot right now.)

Anyway back to the USBCs.

It was a lot of fun to watch. I hadn’t thought much about the competitions since the Canadians back in October and it served as a nice wake up call as to all the work that goes into it which I sort of forgot – mainly in regards to the signature drink.

I don’t know how they tasted, but in terms of creativity points the sig drinks were laced with things I had never seen or even thought of. I noticed two themes – the first was that a lot of the signature drinks were served and tasted in ’stages’ – meaning that the judges were asked to taste a part of the drink, then an ingredient of some sort would be added, and the judges asked to now taste again and note the difference or whatever was intended.

The second thing I noticed was that a lot of the competitors were getting the judges more actively involved – be it in the form of actually stating a flavor they tasted (Devon Pedde) or by actively adding certain ingredients to their drink as instructed so by the barista. The latter proved to be a bit risky in the first round when one judge accidentally dropped one of the ingredients on the floor. Awkward.

Anyone following the competition knows that Intelligentsia dominated. Of the 6 finalists, 4 of them were from Intelligentsia. When it was all said and done, 1st, 2nd, 4th, and 5th went to Intelli, with Michael Philips from Intelligentsia from Chicago taking it home. From what I gathered by being in the crowd and in conversation, it was no surprise that Intelligentsia won (they clearly were stand outs, anyone watching could see that.), but I think it’s safe to say that no one thought Mike would be the winner – not from lack of skill mind you, not at all, but he was definitely the underdog – and that’s what makes these competitions so exciting.

Every time a barista steps up to perform, they all start on an even playing ground with 0 points.

Big congratulations to Mike.

A few other side notes -

The infamous ‘4th Machine’ out did itself. For those who don’t know, there are always 3 competition machines, and then a 4th machine on the side for everyone attending where you can try the competitor’s coffee when they aren’t performing. It’s free, and there is nothing bigger than a cappuccino, so by default it rules.

M’Lissa was the official ritual cheerleader, and fashion blogger. And worked the 4th machine.

There was also a pour over station going strong the first day to the right of the 4th machine.

My espresso of the weekend award goes to Sara (below), who served up her competition espresso on the 4th machine that was made up of a single origin Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, but 75% of it was wet processed, with the remaining 25% dry processed. It was roasted by Verve Coffee Roasters in Santa Cruz, and it was absolutely delish. As a matter of fact, I’m going to email Verve after this and see if they are willing to send over a few pounds of it.

Seeing as the competition was at the convention center, there was another notable convention going on next door – the Scrapbook Convention. You’ve never seen anything like it…trust me. The line up seemed endless, with a not very surprising demographic. It is also probably the only place on earth where guys got in free and women had to pay. (Actually. We went.)

There was a starbucks to the left of the scrapbook convention, and on the right was the barista competition. Inside the barista competition of course was the 4th machine, offering some of the best espresso in north america for free, and yet the starbucks had a line up out the door. It was interesting, and for me that little event sort of summarized the coffee industry as a whole.

We also got to go to Billy Wilson’s cafe, Barista, which is probably earth’s newest quality cafe. (I think it opened like a month ago.)

We didn’t get the chance to take much pictures, but I can assure you it is more than worth going.

Besides having a siphon bar, a 2 group Synesso, and a GS2 – he also has multiple espressos and coffees from all around at any given time. The brick on the outside is gorgeous.

If you’re in Portland, the address is 539 N.W. 13th Ave.

And so – that is that.

I’ve got a lot of practicing to do.