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.
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.
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.]
[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.
On Friday, January 28th 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:
Has mastery of technical skills, craftsmanship, communication skills and who is passionate about their profession, in addition to service.
Has a broad understanding of coffee knowledge and serves high quality beverages.
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.
