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.

Federico 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 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

2021 World Barista Champion Diego Campos (left) and his coach Federico Bolanos.

UNFINISHED BUSINESS

All that’s left to do on Federico Bolanos’ coaching bucket list is to develop a presentation that is a real game-changer in coffee quality innovation, which he believes people like Australia’s Matthew Perger did when he competed in the 2013 WBC with the Mahlkonig EK43 to grind his espressos.

first barista champion of El Salvador all the way to the 2008 WBC in Copenhagen. They placed 23rd overall. Everyone told Federico he would never win, but he wasn’t discouraged. Rather, he realised he wasn’t as far away from his dream as he thought.

“I knew it would take a long time, but it was not impossible,” he says. “I also learned that barista competitions were not only about coffee. I realised this competition is about extraordinary coffee and equally about knowledge, creativity, the concept you deliver, and the service experience you give to the judges. That was an eye opener for me.”

Federico did his research and took an academic approach to coffee, reading as much as he could about the science and chemistry behind it.

In 2009, Federico coached Flor de Maria Gochez in the WBC in Atlanta. In his eyes, Flor was one of the most technically prolific baristas he had trained so far. That year she placed ninth, and Federico was a step closer to his WBC dream.

The final step was reserved for 21-yearold Alejandro Mendez. He worked in a fast-food chain. He didn’t drink coffee, but in the five minutes Federico spent interviewing him for a job, something told him he would be the next World Barista Champion.

“I just knew it. Something sparkled within him. I mentored him. He was like a sponge to information. In 2010, he went on to place 11th in the WBC in London. Alejandro thought it was a backstep for the company, but it wasn’t,” Federico says. “If you fail, you learn so much from it that it helps you improve. So, for 2011, we doubled his training.”

And it paid off. Alejandro won the 2011 WBC in Bogota, Colombia, making Federico’s dream come true.

“I cried like a baby. Even though I didn’t achieve the WBC title myself, I did it as a coach, and it felt incredible,” he recalls. “For me, it wasn’t about the greatness of the result, but how great it was to change someone’s life. When I met Alejandro, he was making a minimum wage at a drivethrough window, and two years later he was a world champion. I felt I had done something very good for someone else, and that’s what made me happier about winning the WBC.”

From that year on, Federico’s baristas never stopped making WBC semi-finals and finals. He trained William Hernandez who placed third in the 2013 WBC in Melbourne. After that, Federico started receiving invitations from international baristas wanting him to coach them, including South Korean barista Jooyeon Jeon whom he started working with that year, and went on to win the WBC in 2019.

“At one point, I did try to train too many baristas at once and it was too much mentally, physically and emotionally. So now I try to stick to one or two, but I must see the right motivation behind the barista. For me, it’s about working with passionate and good-hearted people,” Federico says.

“My way of coaching is very committed. I develop every aspect of the presentation of the competitors I work with, but my core role as a coach, is to bring out the best in who I work with.”

To many, Federico is associated only with success, but he says it’s the mistakes along the way that have shaped the person he is in today. “You learn the most when you fail and the least when you win. The lessons that come with the fails is the treasure map to win WBC,” he says.

Federico says there’s no other secret formula to winning the coveted competition. The key is to adapt to change. Scoresheets and rules are always changed from time to time, so whatever worked one year may not work as well the next. For this reason, Federico’s first piece of advice to any barista is to study the WBC rules. He says those who read it, interpret it, and understand it, usually excel.

“Each win is meaningful, but making a dream come true for the first time with Alejandro was magical,” Federico says. “To me, Jooyeon’s performance and presentation in 2019 was one of the most beautiful and memorable in WBC history. I wanted to coach the first female WBC champion and was hoping to achieve that with Jooyeon but Agnieszka Rojewska beat us there in 2018. It was equally special when Jooyeon won the year after. The next year I wanted to see a farmer become a barista champion, which I achieved with Diego Campos in 2021.”

Federico doesn’t know what to expect when the WBC takes place at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo in September. He hopes to see more presentations focused on a better customer service experience but has one word of warning: “extraordinary coffee is not enough to win WBC. This competition is a lot more complex than just finding, roasting, and brewing great coffee,” he says.

Federico is working with the Mexican barista champion in what will be her first WBC. He could have chosen to work with any number of experienced baristas but wanted to challenge himself and develop someone from the ground up.

And to Federico, growth is the most important value of all. He is driven by the fact that the specialty coffee industry is still in its infancy, and competition keeps him at the forefront of evolvement and innovation.

“I have discovered an industry that’s so well connected in a human way. I know it’s business, but it runs through a strong human fibre,” he says. “It’s also an industry where dreams can come true. You just have to follow them with absolute passion.”