KNOWLEDGE LEADER
Dare to dream Federico Bolanos on his journey to the top of the coaching chain, the reward of playing a backstage role, and why failure is always a good lesson.
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ederico Bolanos has experienced two epiphanic moments which he credits to the position he holds as coach of three World Barista Championship (WBC) winners, two WBC finalists, five WBC semi-finalists, 15 national barista champions, and Founder of Alquimia Coffee Company, a roastery based in El Salvador. The first of those experiences took place at family meeting when Federico asked for a cup of coffee. When it arrived, he took a sip and thought he had been served hot chocolate instead of coffee. He asked again for a coffee and the waiter confirmed it was. “I enjoyed that cup of coffee so much that I thought it was something else,” Federico says. Like so many El Salvadorians, Federico
2021 World Barista Champion Diego Campos (left) and his coach Federico Bolanos.
18 beanscenemag.com.au
grew up understanding coffee to be a functional beverage. His grandfather and great-grandfather were coffee farmers but had sold the family farm and mill when he was little, leaving him with no emotional connection to coffee except for a photo he has playing amongst the coffee trees. From that moment on, Federico started asking questions: “Why didn’t more people in El Salvador have access to the highquality coffee like I had enjoyed that day? Why was the good stuff exported for the world to enjoy and not the locals?” This research led Federico to start El Salvador’s first third wave specialty coffee café in 2006. In search of suppliers, that year he attended his first Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) Expo in the United States. That’s where his second epiphany occurred.
At the back of the tradeshow, Federico heard loud noises, cheering. Inquisitive to the sound, he inquired to those around him. “What’s going on back there?” he asked. “It’s a barista competition. They are competing for the US National Barista Championship,” was the reply. Eager to understand more, Federico remembers walking into the competition arena with grandstands either side of him completely full. “It felt like walking into a football stadium. I saw the field, pitch, lights, and a barista/gladiator fighting for their life in the arena. It was epic, magical, exciting, and thrilling all together,” Federico says. “I just knew I wanted to be part of that. I wanted to compete, and I began dreaming of winning the world barista championship. It was love at first sight, like a lightning bolt that hit me. I had discovered something truly special, my passion.” Federico didn’t even know how to make coffee properly at that stage, but he knew his dream to become a world champion had to start somewhere. He returned home but realised there wasn’t a national barista competition in El Salvador. Instead, in 2007, he applied to be a barista competition judge. He did the necessary calibration, judged all the way up to the finals of the US Barista Championship and took the experience as an immense learning curve. “It only fed my dream,” Federico says. In 2008, El Salvador announced it would host its first national barista competition. All the baristas from Federico’s café wanted to compete as well, but he decided to train just two of them, and himself. As luck would have it, Federico made the finals and placed third, and the other two baristas he trained won first and second place. “Being on stage and having all the attention on myself was too much pressure for me. I discovered early on that I did a better job backstage than on stage. My gift was coaching,” he says. From that point on, Federico focused on conceptualising presentations and coaching baristas. That year, Federico coached the
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