All the action from the 2010 WBC

Five Senses' Blog

By ben.bicknell @ Wednesday, June 30th, 2010
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After acquiring new human origami skills on a 25 hour flight from Melbourne to London, I unfolded myself from my plane seat and emerged into balmy summer weather and 10pm sunsets. I was ready to get stuck into the exciting event that is the 2010 World Barista Championship (WBC)! My disconnect level was pretty high – but jet lag was sorted by a strong dose of WBC judge calibration!

Each year, a lucky few are selected from a pool of accredited judges from around the world to sit in front of the top baristas from over 50 countries at the WBC and absorb their interpretation of exciting specialty coffee — a pretty sweet job!

This year’s judges calibration was more intense and successful than ever before. Over two full on days we pulled apart every possible interpretation of the rules, ran through innumerable tasting and scoring calibrations and limbered up our fingers for frantic scribbling. We participated in exercises designed to refresh our memory of how it feels on ‘the other side’ of the table. We were split into groups, given a coffee and told to get behind the machine, find the best extraction for that coffee and provide the head judges with a concise set of descriptions.

With a plethora of skill sets within the group, we experienced an exciting melting pot of perspectives and approaches to assessing specialty coffee. There were lots of big names, including previous Australian Barista Champion and runner-up WBC competitor, David Makin, along with James Hoffman, WBC Champion and owner of Square Mile and Stephen Morrissey, WBC Champion working at Intelligentsia. They all provided invaluable perspectives as past participants of the WBC. It was great to see these previous competitors helping to develop the competition and industry they love.

After a gruelling two days of intense discussion and an abundance of espresso shots, I headed over to the impressively grand Olympia Stadium for the competitor briefing session. WBC organisers ran through the amazing stage set up, prep times, rule clarifications and the innumerable details that need to be pulled together to ensure a smooth event. It was great to see the camaraderie between competitors as the excitement started to build!

Day one (Wednesday) saw 30 competitors presenting with an additional 24 competitors on day two (Thursday). I acted as a sensory judge throughout and it was an honour to have the opportunity to sit, taste and listen to the passion of the competitors.

The new semi-finals format had competitors excited. This year’s event saw the top 12 competitors from the pool of 54 moving through to the next round. From this top pool of 12, the competitors would be whittled down to an even more polished six, who would be the WBC finalists.

The 12 semi finalists included returning national champions and some virgin competitors, who gave amazing performances and served up delicious coffees. There was a huge roar when it was announced that Australian Barista Champion, Scottie Callaghan was through to the semis. The Aussie support crew was out in force and, as usual, were unrestrained in their gleeful cheering for our champion!

One of the most exciting things to see was that the semis pool included five competitors from coffee producing nations. This is a huge step forward for the competition and our industry as a whole, as it indicates the strong flow of information between consuming and producing nations. There were great techniques shown, and the passion and quality of coffee being served by these guys was amazing. It’s great to see so many different perspectives from the worldwide coffee industry.

Day three (Friday) saw excitement and stress levels rise exponentially! Competitors had been training for months (sometimes years) for their 15 minutes on stage – half of them would go through to the finals and for half of them, it would be a long trip home. After presenting some amazing interpretations of specialty coffee on the stage, the results finally came through. Again, the Aussie contingent went wild as Scottie progressed to the final round of the 2010 World Barista Championship! The final six countries were Australia, USA, Guatemala, Ireland, Denmark and Greece, a great mixture from around the world.

After a tense round of competition with the stadium packed out and people cheering in the aisles, Michael Phillips from Intelligentsia Coffee in Chicago, USA took out the top podium. Michael’s signature drink combined an exciting sensory aspect, representing three different coffees from the same farm in Costa Rica, along with the technical challenge of changing these coffees through the grinder in the tight 15 minute time frame. Scottie gave a polished performance, placing 3^rd in the world with his cardamom infused signature drink and dynamic engagement with the judges.

The week was truly great — although thoroughly exhausting! London put on a great show and hosting international guests with a warm reception at espresso bars around the city was a spectacular addition to the experience.

The World Barista Championship is moving ahead in leaps and bounds and the continual focus on the role of the barista, the importance of the coffee and coffee knowledge presented and a move towards bettering our industry helps move us forward. Moving into 2011 we’re looking at another groundbreaking event, with the first ever WBC hosted by a coffee producing country. Colombia will be the host nation for the next championship, with plans to provide exciting opportunities for all national winners to experience the coffee regions of Colombia around the competition schedule.

The barista competitions, while never being the be all and end all, continue to improve the quality of specialty coffee and tie the worldwide coffee community together under the banner of progress towards quality!

Check out the “WBC website”: www.worldbaristachampionship.com for more. The “AustralAsian Specialty Coffee Association (AASCA) website”: www.aasca.com has information about this year’s Australian championships.