YEAR IN REVIEW 2016
INTERVIEWS WITH CHAMPIONS & COMPLETE COMPETITION RANKINGS — HIGHLIGHTS FROM DUBLIN & SHANGHAI — BEST PERFORMING NATION: JAPAN
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CONTENTS
FROM THE CHAIR, MARCUS BONI Reliving a wonderful year —
WORLD BARISTA CHAMPIONSHIP Berg Wu – Taiwan
— WORLD BREWERS CUP Tetsu Kasuya – Japan
— ORIGIN TRIP Champions In Brazil
— WORLD LATTE ART CHAMPIONSHIP Um Paul – South Korea
— WORLD COFFEE IN GOOD SPIRITS CHAMPIONSHIP Michalis Dimitrakopoulos – Greece
— WORLD CUP TASTERS CHAMPIONSHIP Gabriel Céspedes – Costa Rica
— WORLD COFFEE ROASTING CHAMPIONSHIP Alexandru Niculae – Romania
— BEST PERFORMING NATION Japan
— ALL-STARS A Globe-Trotting Year
— RE:CO SYMPOSIUM Leaders Gather In Dublin
— RE:VERB Sharing Coffee’s Cutting Edge
— VOLUNTEERS The Heart of WCE Events
— MEET THE WCE Advisory Board & Staff
05 09 14 17 19
24 31 36 40 41 42 45 47 49 50
HISTORY OF CHAMPIONS
2016 MARCH SHANGHAI, CHINA World Latte Art Champion Um Paul, South Korea World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, Greece World Cup Tasters Champion Juan Gabriel Céspedes, Costa Rica World Coffee Roasting Champion Alexandru Niculae, Romania 2015 APRIL SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, USA World Barista Champion Sasa Sestic, Australia 2015 FEBRUARY ATHENS, GREECE World Cezve/Ibrik Champion Davide Berti, Italy
2014 MAY MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA World Latte Art Champion Christian Ullrich, Germany World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion Matthew Perger, Australia World Cup Tasters Champion Pang-Yu Liu, Taiwan
2013 MAY MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA World Barista Champion Pete Licata, USA World Brewers Cup Champion Erin McCarthy, USA
2012 JUNE VIENNA, AUSTRIA World Barista Champion Raul Rodas, Guatemala World Brewers Cup Champion Matt Perger, Australia World Cup Tasters Champion Cory Andreen, Germany Ibrik/Cezve Champion Zoltan Kis, Hungary 2011 JUNE BOGOTA, COLOMBIA World Barista Champion Alejandro Mendez, El Salvador
2010 JUNE LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM World Barista Champion Michael Phillips, USA World Latte Art Champion Haruna Murayama, Japan World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion Jeroen de Corte, Belgium World Cup Tasters Champion Hector Gonzalez, Guatemala Ibrik/Cezve Champion Aysin Aydogdu, United Kingdom 2009 APRIL ATLANTA, GEORGIA, USA World Barista Champion Gwilym Davies, United Kingdom
2007 JUNE TOKYO, JAPAN World Barista Champion James Hoffmann, United Kingdom 2006 JUNE BERNE, SWITZERLAND World Barista Champion Klaus Thomsen, Denmark World Latte Art Champion Scott Callaghan, Australia World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion Anna Serova, Russia World Cup Tasters Champion Gloria Pedroza, Switzerland 2005 MARCH ATHENS, GREECE World Latte Art Champion Johann Carlstrom, Sweden World Coffee In Good Spirits Champion Demitri Kostifacos, Greece World Cup Tasters Champion Tim Wendelboe, Norway 2004 FEBRUARY RIMINI, ITALY World Cup Tasters Champion Fabiana Pozar, Italy 2002 JUNE OSLO, NORWAY World Barista Champion Fritz Storm, Denmark 2000 JUNE MONTE CARLO, MONACO World Barista Champion Robert Thoresen, Norway
2016 JUNE DUBLIN, IRELAND World Barista Champion Berg Wu, Taiwan World Brewers Cup Champion Tetsu Kasuya, Japan
2015 JUNE GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN World Latte Art Champion Caleb Cha, Australia World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion George Koustoumpardis, Greece World Cup Tasters Champion Juan Gabriel Céspedes, Costa Rica World Coffee Roasting Champion Audun Sørbotten, Norway World Brewers Cup Champion Odd-Steinar Tøllefsen, Norway 2014 JUNE RIMINI, ITALY World Barista Champion Hidenori Izaki, Japan World Brewers Cup Champion Stefanos Domatiotis, Greece World Cezve/Ibrik Champion Stavros Lamprinidis, Greece World Coffee Roasting Champion Yu-Chuan Jacky, Taiwan 2013 JUNE NICE, FRANCE World Latte Art Champion Hisako Yoshikawa, Japan World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion Victor DelPierre, France World Cup Tasters Champion Lajos Horvath, Hungary World Coffee Roasting Champion Naoki Goto, Japan
2012 NOVEMBER SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA World Latte Art Champion Victoria Kashirtseva, Russia World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion Akos Orosz, Hungary
2011 JUNE MAASTRICHT, NETHERLANDS World Latte Art Champion Chris Loukakis, Greece World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion Philip Leytes, Russia World Cup Tasters Champion Kyriakos Ouzounidi, Greece Ibrik/Cezve Champion Bae Jin-Seol, Korea World Brewers Cup Champion Keith O’Sullivan, Ireland 2009 JUNE COLOGNE, GERMANY World Latte Art Champion Peter Hernou, Belgium World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion Marta Piigli, Estonia World Cup Tasters Champion Valentina Kazachkova, Russia Ibrik/Cezve Champion Christine Koumpouni, Greece 2008 JUNE COPENHAGEN, DENMARK World Barista Champion Stephen Morrissey, Ireland World Latte Art Champion Con Haralambopoulos, Australia World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion Tasos Delichristos, Greece World Cup Tasters Champion Casper Engel Rasmussen, Denmark Ibrik/Cezve Champion Gleb Nevejki & Nadezhda Motylkova, Russia 2007 MAY ANTWERP, BELGIUM World Latte Art Champion Jack Hanna, Australia World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion Helger Aava, Estonia World Cup Tasters Champion Annette Moldvaer, United Kingdom
2005 APRIL SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, USA World Barista Champion Troels Overdal Poulsen, Denmark
2004 JUNE TRIESTE, ITALY World Barista Champion Tim Wendelboe, Norway 2003 APRIL BOSTON, USA World Barista Championship Paul Bassett, Australia 2001 APRIL MIAMI, FLORIDA, USA World Barista Championship Martin Hildebrandt, Denmark
LETTER FROM THE CHAIR: MARCUS BONI —
Marcus Boni
Chair, WCE Advisory Board
“THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING AN AMAZING YEAR OF COFFEE EVENTS ACROSS THE GLOBE!” What an amazing year 2016 has been! New champions have been crowned, World Coffee Events has grown, and the next round of exciting new evolutions for the World Barista Championship has begun.
the Hotelex Shanghai show had the chance to watch the World Latte Art Championship, World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship, World Cup Tasters Championship, and the 4th edition of the World Coffee Roasting Championship.
It would be impossible to cap off a year of fantastic events without taking a moment to thank our host partners, national body organisations, and loyal sponsors—your contributions in helping to share the joy of specialty coffee in 2016 are something to be proud of.
The vibrant coffee community throughout Asia has particularly resonated with the WCE All-Stars program, which brings top competitors to all sorts of coffee events. Seeing the energy given by audiences at All-Stars in Vietnam, Beijing, Seoul, Taipei, Shanghai, and Guangzhou to the All-Stars is a testament to how special sharing excellence in coffee can be.
Seeing our community gather at the World Championships in Shanghai and Dublin as we crowned seven new coffee champions was truly amazing! A heartfelt congratulations to 2016 World Barista Champion Berg Wu of Taiwan, World Latte Art Champion Umpaul of South Korea, World Coffee In Good Spirits Champion Michalis Dimitrakopoulos of Greece, two-time World Cup Tasters Champion Gabriel Céspedes of Costa Rica, World Coffee Roasting Champion Alexandru Niculae of Romania, and World Brewers Cup Champion Tetsu Kasuya of Japan. More than one hundred competitors, coaches, and supporters gathered in Dublin for the World Barista Championship and World Brewers Cup, feeling the warm welcome of the Irish coffee community. With the unification of our parent organizations, the Specialty Coffee Associations of Europe and America, it was particularly exciting to be hosted by the SCAE at their World Of Coffee Dublin show. The World Of Coffee crowd was treated to the introduction of live scoring and the first-ever Teams Competition to the World Barista Championships. The Shanghai Championships were a fantastic opportunity to deepen our connection with the coffee community in Asia. Over 125,000 attendees at
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There are many ways to display excellence in coffee—making it on the highest level of stage, researching its most pressing issues, or leading its most innovative companies and movements. Re:co Symposium and the Re:verb events are dedicated to magnifying the full spectrum of coffee excellence and sharing it around the globe. Returning to Europe in 2016, Re:co Dublin featured insights from over twenty of the brightest minds in the industry in an engaging and challenging event. Re:verb, WCE’s newest feature event, built on its 2015 momentum by sharing the stories of dynamic coffee professionals and rising coffee leaders in three cities in 2016—Tokyo, Shanghai, and Shenzhen. We can’t wait for the 2017 World Coffee Championships cycle to begin in June at World of Coffee Budapest, where over 120 competitors will represent 60+ National Body organisations in the World Latte Art Championship, World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship, and World Cup Tasters Championship, and World Brewers Cup.
“2017 WILL LAY THE GROUNDWORK FOR THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD COFFEE CHAMPIONSHIPS, AND FOR WORLD COFFEE EVENTS, WITH A NEW ROUND OF QUALIFIED SPONSORS, AND INTEGRATION INTO THE UNIFIED SPECIALTY COFFEE ASSOCIATION” The 2017 World Barista Championship will headline Café Show Seoul in November, with some dynamic changes to come. We are excited to see all of our friends and partners from across the globe coming to join the Asian coffee community in cheering on the pinnacle event of competitive coffee. Rounding out the Championship season in 2017 is the World Coffee Roasting Championship, which makes its exciting standalone debut at Hotelex Guangzhou. 2017 is looking to be a year full of innovation. The Rules & Regulations for the Budapest Championships have been released, featuring a new round of competition in the World Latte Art Championship and other exciting changes. The World Barista Championship Evolution Working Group is hard at work right now on an update for 2017 Seoul Rules & Regulations, and we hear they’ve got some particularly dynamic changes in store.
the many dynamic event experiences we are looking forward to in 2017, along with Re:verb Manila, and our first-ever All-Stars event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia! 2017 will lay the groundwork for the future of the World Coffee Championships, and for World Coffee Events. We begin the Qualified Testing program in 2017, evaluating equipment and products on rigorous guidelines to approve potential Qualified Sponsors for the 2018-2020 Championship cycle. 2017 will also see the integration of World Coffee Events into the newly-unified Specialty Coffee Association—an exciting opportunity for even more global reach and resources for all of our events. Needless to say, this work past and present would not be possible without the help and support of the WCE Advisory Board and our now unified parent organisations—the Specialty Coffee Association of America and the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe—the SCA. This support is crucial in enabling our dedicated staff; Cindy, Laura, Veronica, Amy, Kyonghee, Irene, Nathan, James, Roukiat, Irene, Matt, Shelby, Alex, and Connor. The remarkable team at WCE plays a crucial part in connecting the global coffee community together through strengthening relationships and producing high quality events. I personally wish to thank them for their tireless efforts, and look forward to their continued exceptional work in 2017 and beyond! We would like to extend a special thank you to the volunteers who serve on our committees and give their time at our events to make the experience as special as possible for competitors and fans. Thank you all for joining us in cheering on coffee excellence in 2016, and we can’t wait to see you all in 2017!
WCE returns to the 2017 Hotelex Shanghai Show with a new All-Stars Sensory experience—one of
Marcus Boni Chair, WCE Advisory Board
DUBLIN 2016 WORLD BARISTA CHAMPIONSHIP
WORLD BREWERS CUP
SCAE WORLD OF COFFEE 23-25 JUNE, 2016
2015 WORLD BARISTA CHAMPION SASA SESTIC. PHOTO BY KATE BEARD.
www.victoriaarduino.com
WORLD BARISTA CHAMPIONSHIP
BERG WU 9
WORLD BARISTA CHAMPIONSHIP
BY MAXWELL COLONNADASHWOOD, THREE-TIME UK BARISTA CHAMPION Q. Firstly, a huge congratulations on being crowned World Barista Champion 2016. The competition has never been bigger or tougher than it is now. You have been competing at the highest level for several years now, how does it feel to take 1st place? Berg Wu: At the moment of announcement, I was happy but it felt very surreal because I thought I could have done better. On our flight back home from Ireland, it still felt so surreal that I woke up in between dreams and asked my wife if the WBC had finished and who was the champion. After we landed and had I several (I mean, a lot) interviews with the press, I started to feel the “responsibility” of being the ambassador for the industry. But, to be very honest, I have to say that I felt very honored to be able to compete with so many excellent baristas. I am very glad I have been part of the world competition and made contributions to the industry, and that we all progressed together. Q. The cup profile of a great Geisha from Panama is revered. That being said, this is the first Geisha coffee to win the WBC. The coffee is produced by Leslie Freitag of Finca Deborah. Tell us about your journey to the finals with this coffee and why you chose to base your routine around it. A. Usually when preparing for the competition, I build up my routine with a concept, and then I look for coffee which goes well with my concept. This time I wanted to highlight the nice complexity of specialty coffee. And when I think of coffee with nice and high complexity, geisha variety is the first thing coming to my head. When I visited Finca Deborah in the end of January of 2016, I actually didn’t have a chance to taste the coffee there because they hadn’t processed the coffee. But on the other hand, I had the chance to spend time with Leslie and Jamison, to look around the environment, and I think the most important thing is I saw how Leslie & Jamison seriously managed their farm with devotion and passion. Their attitude toward their coffee is very serious and
as a result their geisha trees in that high elevation survived beautifully. Taking this coffee with me to the finals was risky because its complexity is so high that its primary flavors can be very diversified. I needed to be very careful when choosing my flavor descriptors for each round. Q. In your time competing, how have you seen the competition evolve? At the same time, how have you seen the world of speciality coffee evolve? A. Rules and Regulations sometimes reflect the trends of the coffee industry, like the way judges evaluate the crema, and on the other hand, R&R has great impacts on the direction of evolution. Now, the “Accuracy of Flavor Descriptors” plays a very important role in the entire sensory score sheet. As a result, many competitors start to focus on flavors in coffees. And not just select easy and describable coffee, they also understand that roasting profile, extracting method, drinking instructions, etc., are all important attributes to flavor experience. This kind of evolution improved the tasting experience for specialty coffee, getting more trust from customers (if achieving positive results). Q. Your approach to the changes in the rules around the milk beverage seems to really make the most of this new freedom. Tell us about your thought process here. A. If I have a choice, I actually want to make a milk beverage without foam. But since doing so will make me lose points in the visual score for milk beverage, I didn’t do it in my presentation. What I served is a traditional cappuccino size (150ml) but
“…FOR ME, IT IS THE DELICIOUSNESS OF COFFEE THAT EXCITES ME.” the foam is very thin (0.3 cm) and the texture of steamed milk is rather smooth instead of foamy. I think the flavors of this coffee are very very delicate; and I especially liked the orange flavor and the tealike finish of this Geisha. So I wanted to showcase transparency, with a citrus note upfront, and milk tea-like texture. I didn’t want the foam to hinder the customer (judge)’s sensation of the drink. Q. Your unorthodox approach to cooling portafilters pre-brew definitely turned heads and raised questions. I would love to hear where the idea came from and how you researched and developed the technique. A. Back in 2013, when I was serving a customer a single shot of espresso, I myself drank the other shot and found the espresso to be very different in its texture--it became creamier than my trial shots. Then I remembered that I didn’t insert the PF after I cleaned it, so the PF was actually in room temperature. That’s when I started to try this method. And since then when I test different blends, different coffees for espresso, I tend to include the temperature of the PF as part of the parameters. And this time I think this method can highlight the nice aspects of this coffee, which is full of delicate aromas of flower and citron. These kind of aromas are small molecules and disappear very quickly when being heated. That’s why I didn’t want the espresso to be re-heated by the bottom of the portafilter after extracted. This method might work for other floral, light, refreshing coffee, but might not suit for coffees with bigger molecules of aroma. Q. How would you define coffee culture in Taiwan? A. It’s still not a part of the culture yet. Most of us drink more tea than coffee. But the interesting thing is, there are more than 3000 micro-roasters in Taiwan. Besides, a lot of people’s dream in Taiwan is to open a small coffee shop when they quit/retire/ get tired of boring life. So I think the industry is thriving. And one very important thing for foreign visitors most good coffee shops are not open until noon. I don’t know why.
evolved throughout competition?
THE 2016 WBC TOP SIX. PHOTO BY YOUNGMIN LEE.
A. I should say running the business and competing somehow benefit one another. When we are behind the bar, operating machines, tasting coffees, communicating with customers, thinking how to be more efficient… we find many many tiny things. Every day we are inspired a little bit. So we pay attention to these little discoveries and try to “collect” them and explore or dig deeper, and then these little things can become a routine in competition. Meanwhile, when preparing for competition, we also are exploring our potential of being more efficient while serving delicious coffee. For example, we no longer put our espresso cups on the coffee machine, because we found room temperature cups cool down the espresso a little bit and make our espresso blend taste creamier. As another example, we now use cold PF to serve really floral and aromatic Single Origin Espressos. Q. You are obviously extremely passionate about great coffee and the world of speciality coffee. Could you perhaps expand on what it is that excites you about coffee? PHOTO BY JAKE OLSON
A. For me, one cup of really delicious coffee can make me feel so happy for the whole day, even for a week and longer. Now I expect more and more in a cup, which can be difficult to get, but as long as I got what I have expected, I feel excited all the more. I have to say for me, it is the deliciousness of coffee that excites me. Q. Competing at the highest level can be all consuming but it can also lead to new horizons and opportunities. What is next for you? A. Now I don’t have very definite plans for next steps. But since winning, what I have been doing is try to maintain the coffee quality in our coffee shop and our wholesale coffee business. I hired more excellent people and trained them to be excellent baristas. In the future, I hope I can share my coffee with more people. Q. Who would you like to thank? A. My wife, Chee. She is the best customer and she knows how to taste. She taught me never to give up and always look into details. I can never make it without her support. *** Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood is a multi-year World Barista
Q. Competing consistently in coffee provides food for thought and new ideas and experiences. How has the you and your wife Chee ‘s coffee shop
Championship finalist, representing the United Kingdom in 2012, 2014, and 2015. He is also a member of the World Barista Championship Evolution Working Group.
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WORLD BARISTA CHAMPIONSHIP
ABOUT WBC
THE WBC IS THE PREMIER COFFEE COMPETITION PLATFORM, ENGAGING A WORLDWIDE AUDIENCE, PROMOTING EXCELLENCE IN COFFEE, AND ADVANCING THE BARISTA PROFESSION. THIS EVENT IS A MULTI-DAY COMPETITION THAT INVOLVES COMPETITORS, JUDGES AND VOLUNTEERS FROM COUNTRIES AROUND THE WORLD. THE ANNUAL CHAMPIONSHIP IS LIVESTREAMED TO A GLOBAL AUDIENCE ONLINE. EVENT STRUCTURE This competition takes place over four days and consists of a preliminary round a semifinals round and a finals round. Competitors come from
sanctioned national competitions that produce one winner to represent their country in the World Barista Championship. The competitors have 15 minutes to make a set of espressos, milk beverages, and signature beverages. The beverages are judged by four sensory judges, while a technical judge reviews the barista’s technique, and one head judge presides over the entire presentation. Each competitor competes in the preliminary round, and then the top 12 scoring baristas proceed into a semi-final round. From the semi-final round, the top 6 will compete again in a finals round to determine the winner with the highest score, who becomes the World Barista Champion.
2016 WORLD BARISTA CHAMPIONSHIP OFFICIAL RANKINGS
FINAL ROUND: 1 Berg Wu Simple Kaffa 2 Yoshikazu Iwase Rec Coffee 3 Ben Put Monogram Coffee 4 Lem Butler Counter Culture Coffee 5 Charlotte Malaval Ditta Artigianale 6 Lex Wenneker Espresso Service West SEMI FINAL ROUND: 1 Yoshikazu Iwase Rec Coffee 2 Berg Wu Simple Kaffa 3 Ben Put Monogram Coffee 4 Charlotte Malaval Ditta Artigianale 5 Lex Wenneker Espresso Service West 6 Lem Butler Counter Culture Coffee 7 Natalia Piotrowska Independent 8 Hugh Kelly Ona Coffee 9 Dan Fellows Origin Coffee 10 Erna Tosberg Roestbar Joka E. K. 11 Dawn Chan The Cupping Room 12 Ying Hu Outman Coffee
Taiwan Japan Canada USA France The Netherlands
583 553.5 545.5 480.5 473.5 444.5
Japan Taiwan Canada France The Netherlands USA Ireland Australia United Kingdom Germany Hong Kong China
533 530 518.5 509 504.5 489 484 474 473 452 445 441
FIRST ROUND: 1 Ben Put Monogram Coffee 2 Charlotte Malaval Ditta Artigianale 3 Hugh Kelly Ona Coffee 4 Lem Butler Counter Culture Coffee 5 Berg Wu Simple Kaffa 6 Erna Tosberg Roestbar Joka E. K. 7 Dan Fellows Origin Coffee 8 Yoshikazu Iwase Rec Collective Co. 9 Natalia Piotrowska Independent 10 Ying Hu Outman Coffee 11 Dawn Chan The Cupping Room 12 Lex Wenneker Espresso Service West
Canada France Australia USA Taiwan Germany United Kingdom Japan Ireland China Hong Kong Netherlands
508.5 501 489.5 487 483 482.5 481 478 476.5 473 456.5 456.5
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WORLD BREWERS CUP TETSU KASUYA
WORLD BREWERS CUP
BY LUKE ADAMS, STANDART MAGAZINE 2016 WORLD BREWERS CUP CHAMPION TETSU KASUYA OF JAPAN. PHOTO BY DENNIS HICKS
Q. For the 2016 World Brewers Cup, Titlesponsored by Hario, describe the last thing you did the night before competition, before going to bed. A. I watched my favorite movie サイタマノラッ パー (Rapper in Saitama). It’s about rappers from a small country town in Saitama who are chasing their dreams but aren’t very good at rapping. Many people think it’s a piteous movie, but for me, the fact that they never stop dreaming is more encouraging than the usual story of success. I took power from this great movie the night before the final round! Q. Describe the feeling you had when waking up on the day of competition. What was the first thing you did that made the day feel ‘normal’? A. The night before, I dreamt I was the runner-up of WBrC. So, when I woke up, I was completely relieved—not disappointed at all. I felt like I was in the best mental state I could be in. The first thing that made the day feel normal was having a conversation with my fiancée. As usual we spoke about the weather or sleepiness or … I don’t remember exactly; we spoke as usual. In fact, we had a little quarrel in the morning—even more usual for us. Maybe I was a little nervous or excited, but with her I could be as usual.
THE 2016 WBRC TOP SIX. PHOTO BY DENNIS HICKS
Q. What was your ritual and experience of the backstage and prep area? A. Backstage, my ritual is just repeating the motion of brewing and presentation earnestly many many times until the competition starts. I try to concentrate on what I should be doing and not take too much notice of other competitors, because if I did, I probably would be nervous. Q. What was the first thing you saw, or that struck you, when you entered the stage area for your first round? A. The first thing was really just feeling and breathing in the atmosphere of the World Brewers Cup. Standing on the world stage was truly a dream, so I wanted to enjoy it. I found my supporters in the crowd, smiling. Then I started to repeat the motions again. Q. Was there a particular part of your routine that you really wanted to get right? A. My routine is, as I said, just repeating the motions of brewing and presentation. I don’t think we can do better than practice; we can only do what we practiced. But for me, what I really wanted to get right was to express my true feelings to the judges. It sounds quite basic. Generally, in a competition like this, I tend to just speak lines I memorized during preparation. In the final round, though, I was constantly remembering and reminding myself of how those words were born. What kind of feeling did I want to express with those words? Words were not the focus, but how my message and true feelings were conveyed to the judges through words. After my routine was over, I was so satisfied with my presentation because I believed I could express my true feelings and convey my message to the judges perfectly.
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“BACKSTAGE, MY RITUAL IS JUST REPEATING THE MOTION OF BREWING AND PRESENTATION EARNESTLY MANY MANY TIMES UNTIL THE COMPETITION STARTS.” Q. Describe the final round. A. In the final round, I was already relieved. I completely enjoyed my routine because I had confidence. I felt like I was in a state of perfect concentration—like a zone, only seeing what I should see. I didn’t notice other competitors or other curious things. To be honest, I don’t remember the final very well at all! Q. How did you feel after your final round routine? A. After the routine, I was thinking “Just be normal. Do as usual. Tell them my true feelings from the heart. I can do it.” I was confident throughout the routine, even before it. I wasn’t worrying about anything. I suppose I was a little nervous, thinking that maybe I had slipped up, hadn’t done everything perfectly, but I still had this confidence that seemed to say “Of course you did it perfectly.” Q. How did you feel when the announcement came? A. It is difficult to tell you exactly because even I didn’t know what I was feeling exactly. The one thing I knew ‘clearly’ was that I was feeling so many feelings. I felt happiness and excitement, of course. I remembered the really really hard days and was relieved at the thought that they were over, “finally!” I felt so thankful to everyone who supported me in my journey. And I don’t know why, but I cried. Maybe so many feelings melted away the tension and adrenaline… Although I didn’t notice, I was really so tired.
all the things I’d had in my head leading up to the competition. Until the day before I became the champion, every night I was sleeping with anxiety about practice on the next day, my performance in the competition and the result of it. When I became the champion, all that anxiety was finally over and all I wanted was to sleep. I remember clearly even now that I could really sleep well on that night without any anxiety and with feelings of happiness. I didn’t have a special celebration party because everyone—in person, on the phone, through messages—gave me great celebratory messages, so I actually didn’t need one. I considered “usual time” spent with my fiancée, without thinking about the competition, was the biggest present for me and the best celebration I could have. ABOUT WBRC THE WORLD BREWERS CUP COMPETITION HIGHLIGHTS THE CRAFT OF FILTER COFFEE BREWING BY HAND, PROMOTING MANUAL COFFEE BREWING AND SERVICE EXCELLENCE. EVENT STRUCTURE In this Championship, competitors prepare and serve three individual beverages for a panel of judges. The Championship consists of a first round and a finals round. During the first round competitors complete two coffee services—a compulsory service and an open service. For the compulsory service, three coffees are prepared utilizing standardized whole bean coffee provided to them by the competition. For the open service, competitors may utilize any whole bean coffee of their choosing and must also accompany their beverage preparation with a presentation. The six competitors with the highest score from the first round will go on to compete in the finals round, consisting of an open service, with their compulsory scores carrying through. One competitor from the final round will be named the World Brewers Cup Champion.
It was the first time that I cried for the happiness of myself! Q. How did you celebrate? A. There was the after party on the day I became champion, but I went there only for a short time to say hi to people, I went back to my hotel almost straight away. I just wanted to sleep without thinking PHOTO BY DENNIS HICKS.
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PHOTO BY DENNIS HICKS.
WORLD BREWERS CUP 2016 WORLD BREWERS CUP OFFICIAL RANKINGS
FINAL ROUND: 1 Tetsu Kasuya Coffee Factory 2 Mikaela Wallgren The Coffee Collective 3 Chad Wang Jascaffee China 4 Benny Wong The Cupping Room 5 Todd Goldsworthy Klatch Coffee 6 Odd-Steinar Tøllefsen Supreme Roastworks
Japan Finland Taiwan Hong Kong USA Norway
155.59 155.51 149.33 147.77 147.13 146.11
FIRST ROUND: 1 Chad Wang Jascaffe China 2 Todd Goldsworthy Klatch Coffee 3 Tetsu Kasuya Coffee Factory 4 Mikaela Wallgren The Coffee Collective 5 Odd-Steinar Tøllefsen Supreme Roastworks 6 Benny Wong The Cupping Room 7 Dmitrii Borodai Double B Coffee&Tea 8 Rob Kerkhoff Keen Coffee 9 Jeremy Challender Prufrock Coffee 10 André Strittmatter Hochstrasser, Die Kaffeemacher 11 Veronika Gálová Veselá Independent 12 Stathis Koremtas Taf 13 Dane Oliver La Cabra Coffee Roasters 14 Bianca Ganea Origo Shop 15 Du Jianing M2m Coffee 16 Hannes Fendrich Coffee Circle 17 ChungHyun Kim Korea Occupational College 18 Eddy Righi Caffe Pascucci 19 Laura De Boeck OR Coffee Roasters 20 Nikolett Schreiber Espresso Embassy
Taiwan USA Japan Finland Norway Hong Kong Russia The Netherlands United Kingdom Switzerland Slovakia Greece Denmark Romania China Germany South Korea Italy Belgium Hungary
153.24 152.85 152.73 152.2 151.9 148.97 147.95 147.14 146.14 146.08 143.94 143.78 143.73 143.63 143.35 142.88 142.08 141.48 140.6 140.51
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ORIGIN TRIP CHAMPIONS IN BRAZIL
BY KENNETH R. OLSON, BARISTA MAGAZINE PHOTO BY KENNETH R. OLSON
The bus rumbled down a dirt road, through thick rows of yellow Catuai growing under the spindly trunks of mahogany shade trees. As it turned a final corner, a newly constructed wooden platform came into view. Scrambling down from the bus, the riders rushed over in delight: on the left a new roaster stood next to a Victoria Arduino Black Eagle while the right side hosted a pourover station. Here in the midst of a lush coffee plantation, some of the bestknown baristas, roasters, and brewers in the world could take their skills back to origin literally. They found themselves in the middle of the farm because Ally Coffee Merchants sponsored a trip to origin for winners of the World Barista Championships and US Barista Championships for 216. For this week-long trip to Brazil at the end of July, Ally invited along not just the United States Barista Champion, Lem Butler but also first runnerup Andrea Allen. (World Barista Champion Berg Wu from Taiwan was invited as well but couldn’t attend at this time, but he had a personal visit to Brazil thanks to Ally in October.) Additionally, the World Brewers Cup Champion, Tetsu Kasuya, and the winner of the U.S. Brewers Cup, Todd Goldsworthy, along with the second-place finisher James Tooill, and the winner of the U.S. Roaster Championship, Tony Quiero, and the runner up Kyle Belinger joined the group as did former Brazilian Barista Champion Ricardo Teles. Longtime competition mainstays Gianni Cassatini from Nuova Simonelli and the tamper man, a.k.a., Reg Barber from his eponymous company also came along for the expedition
Of course, Brazil is also known for mammoth coffee plantations that produce hundreds of thousands of pounds of coffee a year. Many of these farms are located in Minas Gerais, which grows more coffee than any other state in Brazil. These farms too see a future with specialty coffee. The first morning in country, the group awoke in the shadow of Perla Azul, the Blue Rock, a striking natural stone formation that juts up from the landscape. One of the first noticeable elements of each farm, or fazenda as they’re known in Brazil, in the region was the number of items besides coffee they produced to diversify their revenue stream and increase income. Many had a small café where they sold not just drinks but roasted coffee to visitors and locals alike. Additionally, they might sell beans, cheese, dried meat, and other items they produced on the farm, and of course being Brazil, and to the delight of the traveling troop, many also had a cachaça distillery on site. After a couple of days in Espirito Santo, the tour crossed the border into Minas Gerais. Minas Gerias typically brings to mind huge, flat, mechanized fields where coffee production often seems less like an agricultural process and more of an industrial one, but, along the state’s rugged eastern border,
While Brazil is the largest coffee producing country in the world, primarily known for exporting huge amounts of commercial-grade coffee, a concerted effort is underway to produce more specialty-grade coffees that earn better prices, which will offer a pathway to a sustainable future away from the C-market. The champions visited two states that are great candidates: Espirito Santo and Minas Gerais. The mountains that run through them have the elevation, soil, and microclimates that can produce high-scoring specialty coffee. PHOTO BY KENNETH R. OLSON
there’s nothing massive or flat when it comes to coffee farms. The farms visited included a tiny onehectare lot that supported a young family, and a seven-hectare one where the only workers where the farmer and his mother. This size and diversity allows the kind of experimentation and development of different business models that offer some routes for coffee production to follow into the future. As the coffee tour continued, Tetsu took a moment and just shook his head as he stood on the edge of a drying bed. “I don’t know how I deserve to be here,” he said. “Four years ago I didn’t even drink coffee.” His modesty and humility made a point. It is amazing the opportunities that can come through coffee. His traveling companions shared many of the same sentiments even if they didn’t use the same words. It came time for a change to Fazenda Primavera. At Primavera, the travelers found Graciano Cruz working on numerous experiments, such as selectively harvesting not by hand but by hour with mechanized pickers. To see the experiment in action, the baristas joined Graciano on a latenight trip into the coffee fields. As the mechanical harvesters worked non-stop, dumping freshly picked coffee into a trailer next to the harvester, the team climbed into the trailer, too, to cap a very onlyin-Brazil experience. The next day the team went to Fazenda Matilde, a neighboring farm also operated by Ally. There they found that newly-constructed wooden platform waiting for them. Roasting, brewing, and serving coffee in the middle of a coffee farm might have been enough of a coffee nirvana, but what really
made it memorable was another twist: a latte art throwdown judged by the farm workers. It was a fun, engaging event, and better still, it gave the baristas an opportunity to serve many of the farm workers the first lattes and espressos they’d ever had.
PHOTO BY KENNETH R. OLSON
Leaving Primavera, the group headed for the capital of Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte. Before leaving for home, everyone was invited to breakfast at Bruno Suoza’s Coffee Academy, which not only has a café, lab, and classrooms, but also actually grows coffee in the backyard! But the trip would not be complete without a prototypically Brazilian experience, and that happened the night before when, in honor of Bruno Tavares’ birthday, the whole lot went to see his favorite soccer (Ok, futebol) team’s match, which the home team won to great cheers of “Vamo galo!” from the stands. All in all, Ally put together an epic trip, and if sounds like something to experience firsthand, don’t worry, plans are already underway for next year’s edition.
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SHANGHAI 2016 WORLD LATTE ART CHAMPIONSHIP
WORLD COFFEE IN GOOD SPIRITS CHAMPIONSHIP
WORLD CUP TASTERS CHAMPIONSHIP
WORLD COFFEE ROASTING CHAMPIONSHIP
HOTELEX SHANGHAI 29 MARCH – 1 APRIL, 2016
WORLD LATTE ART CHAMPIONSHIP
UM PAUL
WORLD LATTE ART CHAMPIONSHIP
BY JAESEUNG ROH, BLACK WATER ISSUE 2016 WORLD LATTE ART CHAMPION UM PAUL, SOUTH KOREA
The 2016 World Latte Art Champion goes by Um Paul, though his name in Korean is Um Sungjin. He has long been known for his friendly character and technical skil in latte art, but he he hadn’t had a chance to take part in the world championship since he had never won the final at the Korean Latte Art Championship (KLAC). However, in 2016 the “Uncrowned King” finally won the trophy at the KLAC, and went on to win the 2016 WLAC as the first Korean national barista ever. In his 12th year of being a latte artist, Um Paul had a meeting with us.
drawing on coffee. There weren’t many videos like nowadays; I replayed the ones of making a heart or a rosetta over and over again. Later, I opened a shop in a suburb of Seoul and it went very well for the first 4 years. But the business was not good anymore after I made it 10 times bigger. So I had lots of free time, and it was a chance to read books and get some ideas. Ironically, the failure gave me a precious time for me to think of my past and the future.
Q. How have you been doing since the championship? A. I’ve been having a break. This break had been planned before the championship; I always wanted to make myself a present of time in which I can do anything I want, so that I can look around and solely concentrate on myself to get some ideas, and now, I can say that I’m having a good time. The WLAC made me feel great just like I won the gold medal at the Olympics as the meaning of getting to the peak of something. Q. Congratulations again for the Championship. What made you become a barista? A. It was 2005, I was a college student majoring in Automotive Engineering. One day, I was in a small café in my neighborhood and saw the barista etching with chocolate sauce on top of a cappuccino. It was so fascinating and I learned about the job of being a barista. This was the time I realized that being a barista is what I should do, as I always liked drawing and had a dream of being a chef when I was little. Q. Did you start working as a barista right away? How did you like the new life being a barista?
Q. Let’s get back to the championship. When was your first time competing in the KLAC? A. As soon as I got a phone call about the KLAC in 2011, I decided to apply for it. I had practiced latte art from my very first time working as a barista, I was quite confident. I won the 3rd prize in the first year, and kept trying since then.
A. I was not interested in studying Engineering, and I couldn’t help it but was very obsessed with
2015 WORLD LATTE ART CHAMPION CALEB CHA. PHOTO BY KATE BEARD.
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“...I SHOULD SHOW THE WORLD HOW I AM, INSTEAD OF THE DESIRE FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP. I BELIEVE THIS MIND HELPED ME FEEL COMFORTABLE AND RESULTED IN A GREAT MOMENT.” Q. It took you some time to win the championship though you tried every year. A. I was 3rd twice, then 2nd three times. One day, I was practicing for 2016 KLAC, I realized that I had been feeling a lot of pressure. And I talked to myself, “I should show the world how I am,” instead of the desire for the championship. I believe this mind helped me feel comfortable and resulted in a great moment. Q. And you then won the WLAC as well. What do you think of it? A. Not only did I empty my mind, but the rules of WLAC were changed in 2015 and it worked for me.
The time got 2 mins longer and it turned out to be beneficial to me because etching is one of my best skills. The latte artists at the championship asked me afterwards how I can do it so quick. And I talked to myself again, “I’ve been doing this for 12 years, TWELVE YEARS.” Q. After you won the championship, people would expect to see you more, but you said you are having a break. Can you tell us more about this? A. The reason why I am having my own time is that I understand there are things more important than just working hard. There are some people around me who plan and enjoy their lives wonderfully. They have their own clear thoughts and philosophy about life. I found they get ideas from the moments they
“LIKE MUSICIANS LOVE MUSIC AND LIVE THEIR LIVES WITH IT, I WANT YOU TO LIVE YOUR LIFE WITH COFFEE.” live their lives thoroughly, and make things happen by focusing on their goals. That led me to take a break at this time of my life and try to make goals for
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WORLD LATTE ART CHAMPIONSHIP the next 10 years. I am doing what I planned before, regardless of the championship. I am happy with it. Q. What are you planning afterwards? A. I’m planning to make some books, pouring pitchers, and tampers for latte artists around the world, and also planning some projects that help more people enjoy coffee, which I value a lot, just like I have been doing at the café. Jamie Oliver made cooking easy and fun, I would like to do the same with coffee.
EVENT STRUCTURE For the preliminary round of the championship, baristas produce a single creative latte pattern at the Art Bar, then move to the WLAC stage to create two identical free-pour lattes and two identical designer lattes (which allow etching and decoration). Scores from the Art Bar and Stage are combined, and the top 6 competitors qualify for the final round, where they are asked to create two identical freepour macchiatos, two identical free-pour lattes, and two identical designer lattes. The top-scoring competitor in the final round is declared the World Latte Art Champion.
Q. Any comments for the next WLAC champion? A. I’m sure you’ve worked so hard to get it, so I hope you take some time to look back and design your future. I also wish you could be the coffee/ latte art lover for the rest of your life rather than the champion of a certain year. Like musicians love music and live their lives with it, I want you to live your life with coffee.
Baristas are judged based on visual attributes, creativity, identical patterns in the pairs, contrast in patterns, and overall performance.
ABOUT WLAC THE WORLD LATTE ART CHAMPIONSHIP HIGHLIGHTS ARTISTIC EXPRESSION IN A COMPETITION PLATFORM THAT CHALLENGES THE BARISTA IN AN ON-DEMAND PERFORMANCE. THE TOP SIX AT THE SHANGHAI 2016 WORLD LATTE ART CHAMPIONSHIP
2016 WORLD LATTE ART CHAMPIONSHIP OFFICIAL RANKINGS
FINAL ROUND: 1 Umpaul Independent 2 Qi Li Mellower Coffee 3 Minako Yoshizumi Dean & Deluca Japan 4 Dhan Tamang Caracoli 5 Agnieszka Rojewska Brisman Kawowy Bar 6 Ben Morrow St Ali Family And Sensory Lab Group
South Korea China Japan United Kingdom Poland Australia
374 348 327,5 326,5 320,5 285
PRELIMINARY ROUND : 1 Minako Yoshizumi Dean & Deluca Japan 2 Umpaul Independent 3 Dhan Tamang Caracoli 4 Agnieszka Rojewska Brisman Kawowy Bar 5 Qi Li Mellower Coffee 6 Ben Morrow St Ali Family And Sensory Lab Ggroup 7 Giuseppe Fiorini Independent 8 Michalis Karagiannis Manor House 9 Giesen Cheng Independent 10 Nick Vink H32 11 Arnon Thitiprasert Ristr8to 12 Miriam Aldana Independent 13 Hamid Basiri Amir Chocolate 14 Elvis Seivijus Matiejunas Bewleys 15 Vitaliy Veretilnik Coffeemania 16 Jervis Tan Kinsmen Coffee 17 Benjamin Graf La Cultura Del Caffè 18 Milo Kamil Coffee Lab Zürich 19 Daniel Gerlach Karl Ohg 20 Clara Drake Pihlgren Da Matteo
Japan South Korea United Kingdom Poland China Australia Italy Greece Taiwan The Netherlands Thailand Mexico Iran Ireland Russia Singapore Austria Switzerland Germany Sweden
428,5 388,5 360 359 352,5 339,5 332 327 326,5 319,5 316,5 309 308 296,5 296 294 282,5 272,5 265 264
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WORLD COFFEE IN GOOD SPIRITS CHAMPIONSHIP MICHALIS DIMITRAKOPOULOS 25
WORLD COFFEE IN GOOD SPIRITS CHAMPIONSHIP
BY ALES POSPISIL, EUROPEAN COFFEE TRIP 2016 WORLD COFFEE IN GOOD SPIRITS CHAMPION MICHALIS DIMITRAKOPOULOS
Over 600,000 people live in Athens, most of whom drink coffee daily–from early in the morning till late in the evening. Coffee is there all day long. It is not a surprise that the barista profession is well respected and also that Greece has produced so many world coffee champions.
The most important thing is that I am a barista first and this give me the opportunity to experiment every day with my coffee and learn everything about it.
One of them is Michalis Dimitrakopoulos, who became the 2016 World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion in Shanghai. This young, cheerful barista is already the third member of The Underdog café & roastery “family” to receive the title and you can find all the trophies proudly sitting on the coffee bar in Athens. “I feel very proud that I have a team that consists now of 3 world champions! Before my competition the experience and knowledge that I took from Tasos and George, helped me to go forward and see my mistakes and become better and better every day!” humbly says Michalis. Tasos Delichristos received the title in 2008, and his friend and colleague George Koustoumpardis in 2015.
A. First of all to be on time! Then through my trainings to be consistent every time, because when a little thing was changing, my whole presentation was changing.
Q. What lessons did you learn during this intensive preparation period?
It was my first time taking part in a championship, that means everything was unprecedented for me! The most anxious thing was that I was going to be in a different country. I didn’t know if could find things that I needed for the competition and couldn’t bring from my country! I believe that now if I was competing again, I would be more comfortable and feel free on my movements without being nervous.
All this suggests there is something special about this spacious Athenian cafe when it comes to coffee combined with alcohol. Let’s explore it further with Michalis. Q. What did your training look like? A. I was training every day at least 5 hours! Every morning I was working from 8am to 4pm. After that I had my lunch and at 5pm I was starting to set up everything for my presentation. [that makes at least 13 hours spent with coffee on a daily basis!] I was doing 4 to 5 programs per day and after that I was cleaning my equipment and preparing my ice blocks and making my syrups for the day after. One time per week I had a presentation to my coach and we were correcting my mistakes. SHANGHAI 2016 CIGS GREECE MICHALIS DIMITRAKOPOULOS
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WORLD COFFEE IN GOOD SPIRITS CHAMPIONSHIP
SHANGHAI 2016 CIGS TOP SIX
Q. What makes a good coffee cocktail? A. It all starts from the coffee you are using. You must know everything about the taste profile and the aromas of your coffee and then you must find ingredients that can be combined with it! If you have citrus flavor and aromas in your coffee, you must find ingredients that combine with this. That’s the best way for coffee lovers, they should get a cocktail with their favorite coffee. Different countries, different cultures! Many people love sweet cocktails, others sour or spicy and this is the magic in our job! To find the best way to make a cocktail for everyone! Q. In the WCIGS, it is compulsory to make an Irish Coffee… A. I can’t stop drinking Irish coffee...the buttery mouthfeel and the different temperatures between the cream and the coffee with whiskey and sugar is awesome! When you try a good Irish coffee you are always waiting to evaluate again and again. The first thing to do [when learning about coffee cocktails] is to make an Irish coffee. The most common coffee cocktail of all. Once you can make a good Irish coffee then you can search for your own to discover the combinations of coffee and alcohol. Q. How is your life as a champion? A. Currently I am very happy to do seminars, trainings and presentations at The Underdog and also in different countries around the world. I feel very honored to be invited as a judge in other national championships, this a new experience for me and I enjoy it a lot. And of course I still work as a barista at The Underdog which is the best thing to do for me!
“DIFFERENT COUNTRIES, DIFFERENT CULTURES! MANY PEOPLE LOVE SWEET COCKTAILS, OTHERS SOUR OR SPICY AND THIS IS THE MAGIC IN OUR JOB! TO FIND THE BEST WAY TO MAKE A COCKTAIL FOR EVERYONE!” It is very exciting to be on the judges’ side because you can understand how different it can be to think through the presentation time and throughout the whole competition days. It is difficult for both sides but in a different way. In every way I enjoyed the whole time as a judge, but I also miss the time being on stage as a competitor. I really enjoyed the moments of my competition at WCIGS and I would love to feel that feeling again! Hopefully at another competition! But for now I like to work with my team, involving ourselves and sharing our knowledge of specialty coffee! Q. What would be your advice for the future baristas competing in WCIGS? A. The first and the most important thing is to love what you do. Then to stay focused on that and be humble, work for your passion and everything else will follow! ABOUT WCIGS THE WORLD COFFEE IN GOOD SPIRITS CHAMPIONSHIP PROMOTES INNOVATIVE BEVERAGES THAT SHOWCASE COFFEE AND SPIRITS IN A COMPETITION FORMAT. THIS COMPETITION HIGHLIGHTS THE BARISTA/ BARKEEPER’S SKILLS IN A SETTING WHERE
SHANGHAI 2016 CIGS GREECE MICHALIS DIMITRAKOPOULOS
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WORLD COFFEE IN GOOD SPIRITS CHAMPIONSHIP COFFEE AND ALCOHOL GO PERFECTLY TOGETHER, FROM THE TRADITIONAL IRISH COFFEE (WITH WHISKEY AND COFFEE), TO UNIQUE COCKTAIL COMBINATIONS. EVENT STRUCTURE During the preliminary round, competitors produce four drinks—two identical hot/warm coffee and
alcohol-based drinks, and two identical cold coffee and alcohol-based drinks. The six competitors with the highest preliminary round scores will compete in the final round. The final round requires competitors to produce two Irish Coffees and two coffee-and-alcohol-based drinks. The highest scoring final round competitor will be named the World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion.
2016 WORLD COFFEE IN GOOD SPIRITS CHAMPIONSHIP OFFICIAL RANKINGS FINAL ROUND: 1 Michalis Dimitrakopoulos The Underdog 2 Martin Hudak The Savoy Hotel London 3 Berg Wu Simple Kaffa 4 Shae Macnamara Grinders Coffee 5 Ying Hu Outman Coffee 6 David Jameson Union Hand Roasted Coffee FIRST ROUND: 1 Berg Wu Simple Kaffa 2 Michalis Dimitrakopoulos The Underdog 3 Martin Hudak The Savoy Hotel London 4 Shae Macnamara Grinders Coffee 5 David Jameson Union Hand Roasted Coffee 6 Yu Hing Outman Coffee 7 Fumiaki Nozato Bar Ista 8 Mikaël Portannier Café Lomi 9 Davide Berti La Chichera Café - Nuova Ricambi 10 Paul Ungureanu Paul Ungureanu Consulting
Greece Slovakia Taiwan Australia China United Kingdom
329 319 294 272.5 262.5 221.5
Taiwan Greece Slovakia Australia United Kingdom China Japan France Italy Romania
453.5 435.5 425.5 414.5 360 359 355.5 348 345 323.5
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WORLD CUP TASTERS CHAMPIONSHIP GABRIEL CÉSPEDES
WORLD CUP TASTERS CHAMPIONSHIP
BY ALEX BERNSON, WCE STAFF 2016 WORLD CUP TASTERS CHAMPION, GABRIEL CÉSPEDES, COSTA RICA
Juan Gabriel Céspedes knows a few things about defending a title. Not only has he been the Costa Rican Cup Tasters Champion for four years running—he is also the first competitor to ever win a World Coffee Championship and then successfully defend their title the next year, with his win at the 2016 World Cup Tasters Championships in Shanghai after his first win at the 2015 Gothenburg Championships. He announced his intention to defend his title in the 2015 WCE Year In Review, and in this year’s issue we’re happy to congratulate him on fulfilling his promise! Evaluating coffees through cupping is one of the most rigorous disciplines that exists in coffee, with talented, calibrated cuppers employed across the world at every stage of the coffee cycle. Cupping is critical to quality, from selection and grading at harvest, to importer evaluation and coordination, to roast and blend development and quality control, all the way to the curation of menus and calibration of baristas. This sometimes esoteric-seeming art can even be a valuable tool to present and utilize in consumer education.
a great cupper. Gabriel has been able to learn about and cup coffee at every stage of production and export, giving him a sharp tongue that came in handy against the stiff competition in Shanghai. Gabriel faced off against Dongho Lee of South Korea, Boris Ortner of Austria, and Mateusz Petlinski of Germany in Shanghai’s final round. Mateusz himself was a returning national champion: in 2015 in Gothenburg he finished 2nd to Gabriel, a single missed cup separating him from the win. As all competitive cuppers know, time is often the tiebreaker in this fast-paced competition – Mateusz finished his finals evaluation in 4:32, compared to Gabriel’s much longer 7:14. But Gabriel finished a cup ahead of Mateusz—in fact, Gabriel took the 2015 Gothenburg Championship crown by going on a streak and correctly identifying all eight cups in the Quarter-Finals, Semi-Finals, and Finals. The excitement to see if Gabriel could repeat his perfect run at the 2016 Shanghai Championships was palpable, and when he turned in one of three
In the industry, cupping is a complex process evaluating many dimensions through its own brew method. On stage, the WCTC tests sensory skills by asking the cupper to focus on one thing: noticing minute differences between cups of filter coffee. Winning the competition requires tightly calibrated sensory skills. Gabriel has been working in coffee since he was 19, and has cupped coffee in multiple capacities for multiple well-regarded companies in the sector. Costa Rica has coffee in its blood, and did much to pioneer the movement towards micro-lot selection, and so it is unsurprising that this country known for producing great coffee has also produced such SHANGHAI 2016 CTC COSTA RICA GABRIEL CÉSPEDES
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perfect eights in the first round, and the only eight in the Quarter-Finals, the pressure kept ratcheting up. In the Semi-finals, Gabriel once again took over two minutes longer than Mateusz and the rest of the pack. After lifting a cup to reveal that he had missed his first cup ever in five rounds of World competition, some hesitation appeared, but his score was still strong enough to put Gabriel in first—a point ahead of the 2nd and 3rd place tie at six cups. In the final round Gabriel and Dongho both stretched the time close to the 8 minute limit, with Gabriel choosing to finish just 9 seconds before Dongho, calculating that speed may in fact need to break a tie here. But once again, it all came down to a single cup: Dongho Lee identified five cups correctly, and Gabriel identified six, an explosive smile lighting up as his triumphant title defense was revealed. In interviews, Gabriel talks about the importance of managing your nerves—he says that though the coffee pairings themselves get more similar and harder to identify in each round, it is really the increasing requirement for handling nerves and pressure that makes each round harder. Watching him on stage though, you would never know that he was feeling nerves at all—at the table, Gabriel is all calm efficiency and concentration, working at his own pace and spending time with each triangulation. Great care is put into creating pairings for triangulation challenging enough to stump even the world’s best cuppers. Micro-lots of the same variety or region, or even different roasts of the same coffee are placed next to each other in attempts to catch the cupper that is not taking long enough to evaluate each cup. Backstage, there is an army of 25 brewers, supplying endless standardized pots to fill up the many different combinations presented to each cupper. Working with just a spoon, some water, and a spit cup to manage the potentially nerve-wracking amounts of caffeine, the World Cup Tasters Champion must be able to handle bouts of intense concentration amidst cheering fans, putting their palate’s familiarity and nuance to the test. For Gabriel, who has been working as a cupper for his whole adult life, this looks second nature, even on the World stage. In October , Gabriel won the Costa Rican Cup Tasters Championship again, so he will return to the World Cup Tasters Championship at the 2017 Budapest Championships in June. Can he complete the hattrick and clinch a third World Championship title? And just how many perfect eights can he pull off? We can’t wait to find out.
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2016 WORLD CUP TASTERS CHAMPIONSHIP FINALISTS
“ONCE AGAIN, IT ALL CAME DOWN TO A SINGLE CUP: DONGHO LEE IDENTIFIED FIVE CUPS CORRECTLY, AND GABRIEL IDENTIFIED SIX…”
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WORLD CUP TASTERS CHAMPIONSHIP ABOUT WCTC THE WORLD CUP TASTERS CHAMPIONSHIP AWARDS THE PROFESSIONAL COFFEE CUPPER WHO DEMONSTRATES SPEED, SKILL, AND ACCURACY IN DISTINGUISHING THE TASTE DIFFERENCES IN SPECIALTY COFFEES. EVENT STRUCTURE Coffees of the world have many distinct taste characteristics and in this competition format the objective is for the cupper to discriminate between
the different coffees. Three cups are placed in a triangle, with two cups being identical coffees and one cup being a different coffee. Using skills of smell, taste, attention and experience, the cupper will identify the odd cup in the triangle as quickly as they can. A total of eight triangles are placed in each round. The top eight competitors with the most correct answers and the fastest time proceed to the next Semi-Finals round. Then the top four will compete again in the Finals round to determine the next World Cup Tasters Champion .
2016 WORLD CUP TASTERS CHAMPIONSHIP OFFICIAL RESULTS FINAL ROUND: RANK NAME COUNTRY 1 Juan Gabriel Céspedes Costa Rica 2 Dongho Lee South Korea 3 Mateusz Petlinski Germany 4 Boris Ortner Austria
# CORRECT TIME
6 5 4 3
SEMIFINAL ROUND: # CORRECT RANK NAME COUNTRY 1 Juan Gabriel Céspedes Costa Rica 7 2 Boris Ortner Austria 6 3 Dongho Lee South Korea 6 4 Mateusz Petlinski Germany 5 5 Patricia Birungi Uganda 5 6 Viktoria Sharkova Russia 5 7 Søren Pehrson Denmark 4 8 Hector Gonzalez Guatemala 3
7:41 7:50 4:52 4:27
TIME 7:38 5:15 6:44 4:53 5:45 7:13 7:46 7:04
QUARTERFINAL ROUND: RANK 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
NAME Juan Gabriel Céspedes Hector Gonzalez Søren Pehrson Dongho Lee Boris Ortner Patricia Birungi Viktoria Sharkova Mateusz Petlinski Taka Koyangagi Marius Nica Chris Kwong Sebastian Maurer Chen Runfa Donavan Mclagan Csaba Balogh Lorenzo Sordini
COUNTRY Costa Rica Guatemala Denmark South Korea Austria Uganda Russia Germany New Zealand Romania Hong Kong France China South Africa Hungary Italy
# CORRECT
8 7 7 6 6 6 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 4 2
TIME 7:05 6:58 7:39 5:26 5:48 6:27 6:28 6:42 6:49 6:52 5:41 6:12 6:20 6:39 7:04 6:02
FIRST ROUND: RANK
NAME
COUNTRY
# CORRECT
TIME
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Taka Koyanagi Donovan Mclagan Juan Gabriel Céspedes Søren Pehrson Sebastien Maurer Mateusz Petlinski Chris Kwong Lorenzo Sordini Patricia Birungi Hector Gonzalez Boris Ortner Chen Runfa Csaba Balogh Viktoria Sharkova Dongho Lee Marius Nica
New Zealand South Africa Costa Rica Denmark France Germany Hong Kong Italy Uganda Guatemala Austria China Hungary Russia South Korea Romania
8 8 8 7 6 6 6 6 6 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
6:11 7:25 7:43 7:24 5:42 6:06 6:11 6:42 7:10 5:26 5:45 7:14 7:31 7:33 6:11 7:56
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WORLD COFFEE ROASTING CHAMPIONSHIP ALEXANDRU NICULAE 37
WORLD COFFEE ROASTING CHAMPIONSHIP
2016 WORLD COFFEE ROASTING CHAMPION ALEXANDRU NICULAE IN SHANGHAI
Alexandru Niculae is a multi-talented coffee professional who is very familiar with the highest level of coffee competitions. In 2014, he represented Romania at the World Brewers Cup, finishing sixteenth. In 2015, he returned to the world stage, finishing 8th at the World Coffee Roasting Championship. In 2016, he took first place at World Coffee Roasting Championship, Title-sponsored by Proaster, in Shanghai, China. These performances are not Alexandru’s only experience with competitions. In 2015, he roasted the coffee that his girlfriend, Katy Szasz used to take 2nd place at the World Cezve/Ibrik Championships, and that same year, his friend Paul Ungureanu used a coffee Alexandru had roasted to take 3rd place at the World Coffee In Good Spirits Championship. Alexandru has been roasting coffee for six years, primarily on a Probatino roaster. He learned to roast by going through training with Elisabet Sereno, attending a seminar with Scott Rao, and roasting “many many many trials.” I sat down with Alexandru to hear more about the path to his 2016 win. Q. Why did you choose coffee? When did you decide that you want to work with coffee and compete? A. I was not a passionate coffee consumer until I had my own restaurant. Wishing to offer my customers quality coffee, I started doing research and I realized
CEZERA CARTES, 2014 ROMANIAN BARISTA CHAMPION
“I AM THE FIRST ROMANIAN WHO MANAGED SUCH A PERFORMANCE! IT’S A UNIQUE FEELING, WHICH I CANNOT DESCRIBE IN WORDS. BUT BEHIND THIS SUCCESS IS A LOT OF WORK, TRAINING, CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT.” how little I knew about coffee, about this beneficial product, about the art of preparing it. At that time I decided to attend some courses. A trip to Miami totally changed my vision about coffee. There, I used to go daily to a cafe where I was delighted by the taste of coffee. I became friends with the manager of the cafe, a former competitor at US barista championships. Back then I tasted several specialty coffees from different growing areas and I was very impressed. That was the moment when I knew that I have to compete. I knew then that this is the field I want to work in.
“MY FIRST DREAM WAS FULFILLED—TO BECOME WORLD CHAMPION. NOW FOLLOWS THE SECOND: TO OPEN MY OWN CAFÉ AND ROASTERY.”
ALEXANDRU TRACKS HIS ROAST DEVELOPMENT IN SHANGHAI.
Q. Is winning a title the most important experience of a barista’s life?
ALEXANDRU’S WINNING ROAST PROFILES
A. Obviously, yes. I won the highest world title. I am the first Romanian who managed such a performance! It’s a unique feeling, which I cannot describe in words. But behind this success is a lot of work, training, continuous improvement.
BLEND
Roast tracking information kindly provided by Cropster.
Q. What advice do you have for any barista who competes and wants to become world champion? A. What I have already said above: a lot of work, training, improvement. I would add passion and talent. Q. How do you think this achievement will change your life? I think it’s for the better! My first dream was fulfilled—to become world champion. Now follows the second: to open my own café and roastery. Q. What would you like to tell the readers? A. Love coffee. Only the highest quality ones, specialty, only freshly roasted, properly prepared by professionals.
SINGLE-ORIGIN
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WORLD COFFEE ROASTING CHAMPIONSHIP ABOUT WCRC
The World Coffee Roasting Championship debuted in 2013. In this three-stage event, competitors are scored on their performance evaluating the quality of green coffee (coffee grading), developing a roasting profile that best accentuates the desirable characteristics of that coffee, and on the ultimate cup quality of coffees roasted. The event tests the roasters’ skills with both Single-Origin and Blend profile development.
2016 WORLD COFFEE ROASTING CHAMPIONSHIP OFFICIAL RANKINGS 1
Alexandru Niculae
Romania
493.5
2
Dmitrii Borodai
Russia
492.5
3
Matthew Robley-Simeonsma
United Kingdom
491.5
4
Joanna Alm
Sweden
486
5
Rubens Gardelli
Italy
485.5
6
Özgün Sarisoy
Turkey
485.25
7
Salvador Benitez
Mexico
479.25
8
Yuya Kawai
Japan
476.75
9
Seong Jun
South Korea
475.25
10 Alec Pfuhl
Germany
474.92
11 Crazy Veiser
China
471
12 Stanley Wu
Taiwan
461.75
BEST PERFORMING NATION: JAPAN
PHOTO BY TOSHIHIRO OIMATSU FROM TOKYO, JAPAN [CC BY 2.0]
Each year, WCE reviews all the competition rankings to determine the year’s best performing nation, with the award going to the licensed national body that accumulates the most points in the World Championships. All licensed national bodies are awarded points on a descending scale from first place (six points) through sixth place (one point) for every finalist that places in one of the 2016 World Championships. This year’s race was a close one, with only a single point separating the winner:
WORLD COFFEE EVENTS IS PLEASED TO PRESENT THE BEST PERFORMING NATION OF 2016: JAPAN! Demonstrating exceptional participation and performance with a total of 15 points, Japan claimed the title with three separate World Championship finals placements: • •
World Brewers Cup: Tetsu Kasuya – 1st Place World Barista Championship: Yoshikazu Iwase – 2nd Place
•
World Latte Art Championship: Minako Yoshizumi– 3rd Place
The Best Performing Nation title goes to Japan, edging out Taiwan, which also had three finals placements, including 1st place at the World Barista Championships, and third place at both the World Brewers Cup and World Coffee In Good Spirits Championship. Greece once again placed in the top three, taking third in the Best Performing Nation, with 1st place finishes at the World Coffee In Good Spirits Championship, and Cezve/Ibrik Championship. Congratulations to Japan, and to their sanctioned National Body, the Specialty Coffee Association of Japan! Final Best Performing Nation Rankings • 1st – Japan (15 Points) • 2nd – Taiwan (14 points) • 3rd – Greece (12 points)
LEARN MORE ABOUT JAPAN’S NATIONAL BODY, THE SPECIALTY COFFEE ASSOCIATION OF JAPAN, AT WWW.SCAJ.ORG
2016 WORLD BREWERS CUP CHAMPION TETSU KASUYA. PHOTO BY DENNIS HICKS.
2016 WORLD BARISTA CHAMPIONSHIP 2ND PLACE, YOSHIKAZU IWASE. PHOTO BY JAKE OLSON
WCE STAFF
2016 WORLD LATTE ART CHAMPIONSHIP 3RD PLACE, MINAKO YOSHIZUMI.
ALL-STARS A GLOBE-TROTTING YEAR
“I WILL TAKE THIS EXPERIENCE AND THE BARISTAS OF GUANGZHOU WITH ME WHEREVER I GO.”
LEMUEL BUTLER ALL-STARS GUANGZHOU
The All-Stars events were created in 2013 to bring talented coffee makers who have placed highly in World Championships to audiences around the globe. Since then, All-Stars has made stops at 16 separate events, sharing the highest levels of coffee in accessible, fun events at trade shows and competitions. At each All-Stars event, some of the world’s best baristas are featured in activities including mystery drink challenges, pop quizzes, on-demand performances, meet-and-greets, and more, while special guest hosts and unique local twists. Enjoy this selection of our favorite social media shots from our 2016 All-Stars events, along with quotes from some of our baristas!
“IT WAS A TIME WITH AMAZING PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY THOSE THAT CAME TO SEE AND TALK TO US —ON MY WAY BACK HOME MY CHEEKS WERE STILL HURTING FROM SMILING SO MUCH” AGNIESZKA ROJEWSKA ALL-STARS SHANGHAI
Thanks to the SCAE and the barista community for our shared success in 2016! As a leading manufacturer of technology for water optimisation, BWT water+more works hand in hand with the barista community. The ideas and wishes of baristas are the starting point and spur for our developments. Our filter systems and reverse osmosis equipment give coffee machines the best possible protection from limescale and deliver water of outstanding sensory quality for the best coffee creations in the world.
info@water-and-more.de
www.bwt-wam.com
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“MY FAVORITE EVENT WAS TEACHING AN AUDIENCE MEMBER HOW TO POUR LATTE ART IN 15 MINUTES. IT’S A LOT TO TEACH IN SUCH A SHORT AMOUNT OF TIME!”
SARAH ANDERSON ALL-STARS VIETNAM
“I HAD ONE OF THE BEST ALLSTARS EXPERIENCE IN VIETNAM! SUCH AN IMPRESSIVE COFFEE CULTURE AND PASSIONATE AUDIENCE, COMBINED WITH FANTASTIC PERFORMANCE AND TEAM WORK ON THE ALLSTAR STAGE.”
CALEB CHA ALL-STARS VIETNAM
RE:CO SYMPOSIUM DUBLIN 2016 BY GABRIELLA WRIGHT RAW MATERIAL COFFEE
Re:co Dublin kick-started my career. After I finished my university degree focused on Latin American economics, I was considering how to best apply my education. I had been hiking for three weeks, with lots of time to think, when I realized that I needed to become completely engaged in coffee again. I had first heard of Re:co while discussing value chains with Peter Giuliano, and I knew I absolutely needed to try to attend. I applied for the Re:co fellowship by filming my video right where it hit me: in hiking gear in the middle of a field on the Camino de Santiago in Spain. A week later I was honoured with the fellowship, and before I knew it I was in Dublin, about to be given the chance to participate and ask questions about coffee like never before. When I stepped into the RDS Concert Hall, I was both excited and nervous to see the big stage and tables full of chairs. I had not known what to expect. I passed into the break-out room where coffee from different origins had been chosen to represent flavor characteristics on the new SCAA Flavor wheel and was being served both as espresso and brewed coffee. There were also sensory experiences with milk, beer, and items for smelling for guests to explore and challenge. Standing there with my first cup, I watched as guests arrived. The individuals that filed in were from different regions, cultures, and work and life experiences. I began to feel something exciting was going to happen. My anticipation rose when we got called in to the concert hall for the first session. During that the first session on business, the “elephant in the room”, I realized that this environment was ideal for asking questions, proposing new opinions, and sharing ideas. Each talk was presented with poise and passion. With our diverse backgrounds, topics were examined in a variety of ways without being rejected. Being relatively new to specialty coffee, I instantly felt accepted and appreciated in this environment. Thanks to the Barista Guild of Europe volunteers at the coffee bar, each guest of Re:co was well caffeinated and ready to further discuss all the topics presented. I often thought to myself over the course of the two days “when and where else would I have the opportunity to engage with and learn from all these coffee professionals in one place?” This year’s event was divided into seven sessions with twenty-three speakers. It covered business, gender, research, communications, labour, technology, and the unification of the Specialty
TALOR BROWNE OF TALOR & JØRGEN GIVING A TALK ON GENDER, INCLUSIVITY, AND COFFEE. PHOTO BY DENNIS HICKS. Coffee Associations of Europe and America. Each session featured two to five experts in their field. Their expertise ranged from handling challenges, to developing solutions, to pointing out what the industry needs to work on. Examples of challenges included: addressing the labour crisis at the farm level, (which made me want to find out why right away), to developing the new flavour wheel, (a powerful new tool), to challenging why people of different gender are not paid equally (I was shocked by the data presented on this!). The Re:co discussions may have started on stage, but they really took off in the audience after each lecture. These discussions have continued long after we all left Dublin. Together, nearly two hundred guests (twenty of us being fellowship recipients) increased our understanding about the coffee industry and discussed how to further develop that knowledge. Both new and old possibilities and challenges were discussed. I had many conversations about why there aren’t as many women competing in Brewers and Barista competitions. Even now, months after the event, I am still involved in conversations regarding gender
“THE RE:CO DISCUSSIONS MAY HAVE STARTED ON STAGE, BUT THEY REALLY TOOK OFF IN THE AUDIENCE AFTER EACH LECTURE.”
still in Dublin. We sat for hours drinking coffee. I had three more interviews over Skype and exactly one month after Re:co, I moved to Australia to start my new life as an employee with Raw Material. Re:co followed by the World of Coffee was the best job fair that any coffee professional could ask for. Re:co changed my life. It is truly a unique event that really dives into big issues and provides a space for
“RE:CO DISCUSSES SPECIALTY COFFEE’S FUTURE, GETTING INVOLVED, AND MAKING A DIFFERENCE. IT IS WHERE WE CAN LEARN AND ENGAGE WITH THE INDUSTRY AND WITH EACH OTHER.”
BLUE BOTTLE’S BRYAN MEEHAN issues. I am looking forward to seeing how women GAVE A Q&A WITH RE:CO DUBLIN place in upcoming competitions. HOST JAMES HOFFMAN. PHOTO BY DENNIS HICKS. Re:co was a great opportunity to create new networks and connections. I have been fortunate to stay in contact and I’ve even visited with many of the speakers, attendees, and fellows from Dublin. Fellows were told that we are the future leaders of coffee. If that deems true, we will lead with this shared experience and a history of being friends on Facebook and liking each other’s posts, photos, and blogs. Many of the fellows are already leaders, such as Mikaela Wallgren and Katie Carguilo. Mikaela took 2nd in the World Brewers Cup and Katie is overseeing things at Counter Culture as their West Coast Quality Analyst.
them to be discussed in person. It was such a great experience and I feel incredibly fortunate to have met the people I did. For anyone passionate and curious about coffee, I encourage them to consider attending the event. It is where the current and future leaders of the specialty community can come together and have the chance to ask questions and share experiences and findings. Re:co discusses specialty coffee’s future, getting involved, and making a difference. It is where we can learn and engage with the industry and with each other. It’s a place where having a different perspective is encouraged; where new connections and opportunities are discovered and lives are changed, all over a great cup of coffee.
When I said that Re:co kick-started my career, I mean it quite literally. I was looking for work at the time, and after Day One, I had a list of companies and people to talk to. Some truly gracious individuals at the event introduced me to colleagues, and gave me suggestions of other people to talk to, including the fine people at Raw Material, who I now work for. When I met my now boss, we bonded immediately: he told me a corny joke, I told him I wanted a job, and we exchanged information for an interview. My first interview was a few days after World of Coffee and we were both RE:CO DUBLIN FEATURED A POPULAR NEW DEBATE FORMAT, ON THE QUESTION OF WHETHER GREAT COFFEE CAN SCALE. PHOTO BY DENNIS HICKS.
RE:VERB THE INSIDE VIEW WITH DANIELLE HARRIS ALEX BERNSON, WCE STAFF
DANIELLE HARRIS PRESENTING AT RE:VERB SHANGHAI.
Re:verb is now in its third year of bringing dynamic thinkers and doers in coffee plus dynamic original media to exciting coffee markets. This year, Re:verb headed to Tokyo, Japan for the Specialty Coffee Association of Japan’s annual show, and to Shanghai & Shenzhen, China for a series hosted by Jascaffe. Danielle Harris, a freelance designer, creative director, and brand strategist who has worked with coffee companies like Blue Bottle and Tonx, joined us in both Japan and China. Here is the inside view of Re:verb, in Danielle’s own words: Q. What was the subject of your talk? A. My talk was geared towards new shop owners, roasters, and baristas who are looking to open their own stores and create their own brands. I wanted to give them the right mindset and knowledge to approach branding. I wanted to empower people to do something different, something completely authentic to them, and in a successful and strategic way. The strategy includes thinking about values, about voice, about how they are going to market their product, and about the rituals/products they are going to develop that should all feel related to one another. After this work is done they can more easily discover what the aesthetic is that communicates these things and that’s the best time to develop your logo, packaging, and style guide. Q. How did you get connected with Re:verb? A. As a woman getting higher up in her career, I sometimes feel that “imposter syndrome” and I that might be the reason I wasn’t at Re:Verb sooner. I was working at Blue Bottle and I got this email from World Coffee Events asking to come speak at an event and I forwarded it on to another department, thinking they would be looking for someone bigger in the coffee world who had experience speaking. This is all good though, because there are great speakers working at Blue Bottle and so a couple of them did impressive talks at a Re:verb in Korea and a Re:co in New Zealand.
Blue Bottle] forwards me an email, and it’s from [WCE staff-member] Amy Ball, saying “We want you! We want you to give a talk on branding and marketing!” and for the first time it was clear they were asking for me specifically. I was so excited I had to pinch myself. At a dinner in Tokyo, [WCE staff-member] Kyonghee Shin said, “So glad you could finally make it! Juliet Hahn [Lead Roaster/ friend at Blue Bottle Coffee] said you would be a great fit and we’re glad you finally said yes.” So, I’m super thankful for WCE’s effort and Juliet Hahn for helping me to get over my imposter syndrome and learn to love speaking. Q. What was Tokyo like? It’s beautiful and thoughtful, and respectful of everything and everyone. That really comes across when you’re on stage engaging with people in the crowd, and afterwards when people are coming up with questions. It feels so heartwarming to be around that kind of community. Q. How about Shanghai & Shenzhen? A. I’m so glad I went—the culture, the people, the ambition and intelligence people have around improving things is mind-blowing… We spent a lot of time with Jascaffe, our hosts, and now I’m a big fan. It’s unfortunate that the coffee world doesn’t know more about Jascaffe, because what they’re doing is so impressive and varied and loyal to coffee.
After I left Blue Bottle to pursue a freelance career, Michael Phillips [friend and Head of Training at KLAUS THOMSEN ANSWERING AN AUDIENCE QUESTION AT RE:VERB TOKYO.
The crowd in China was less shy about asking questions. We were going way over time and people were in their seats, like “we would be here all night if we could.” I felt really connected to this crowd and feel like I left with life-long friends. Q. What were some of the most interesting questions you got from the Re:verb crowds?
it all still applies the same way. Give someone an authentic, different experience. Give them a reason to come to you.
A. One was “what do you think success is? When do you think a brand is successful?”
Q. Who do you think a Re:verb event is good for? Who should go?
To me, it’s when I walk into a business and before I even register what they’re selling or what’s going on, I start to feel things, and feel good, and then as I want to dive deeper into the brand, it’s not confusing, it feels curated and considered, and by the time I leave I’ve had such a good experience I commit that to memory.
A. At a broad level, new coffee business people. They should definitely go, especially because of what you get from the Q&A panels, people who have worked in specialty coffee for 10 to 15 years, so we really know the pains, what’s working, what’s out there, what’s competitive. You get this huge market analysis and strategy download of what’s been happening in coffee and what is coming up.
In China, someone asked us “I live in a really small town, how do I build interest in specialty coffee?” We’re all diving in, and then at some point, Isabela Raposeiras says “can I ask you, how many people live in your small town?” He says, “three million people.” So there’s a bit of a scale difference in China, but the answer to the question wound up being that
I think the biggest reason to go is because that feeling of community and friendship you get from going to a coffee shop often, you go to these conferences and feel that same way. You are now a part of this international coffee community. You have contact with all of us, you have contact with all these other engaged people in the room. We need to create this community where there is dialog, where we’re all taking about what’s happening in different markets and how can we help each other.
BeanScene Magazine Beanscene magazine is always chock-full of caffeinated content, including industry profiles, machine innovation, origin stories and lots more.
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VOLUNTEERS THE HEART OF WCE
organization of events in St. Petersburg. Q. Why do you volunteer? A. Volunteering offers so many positives; meeting with all the competitors from around the world, watching teams and coaches training backstage (somehow I managed to see the full run-throughs), as well as the inspiration to develop a coffee culture in Russia. The biggest plus is trying and tasting coffee – drinking some of the best micro-lots in the world can’t be described in words.
IRINA SHARIPOVA WBRC ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER Q. What is your day job? How has it prepared you for volunteering? A. I work as a barista trainer and quality controller in North West Coffee Company in St. Petersburg, Russia. Dublin is my third volunteering experience at World of Coffee. This time I decided to go further, and so I applied to be Assistant Stage Manager at the World Brewers Cup. I also organize some of the championships and coffee events at home, and so volunteering helps me to improve the level of
Q. What’s the biggest challenge when it comes to volunteering? When I first volunteered in Rimini in 2014 my English wasn’t as good as it is now, and I was such a shy person too. Volunteering pushed me out of my comfort zone, to be more talkative and socially active, which is nice! Q. If you could give a potential volunteer some advice, what would it be? I would recommend to anyone that is engaged in coffee to try to help out at such a huge event. It expands your horizons, your knowledge, and your personal development.
Q. Why do you volunteer? I volunteer because having a role in the organisation of these events connects you into the wider industry community in a completely different way than as an attendee. Your role puts you with people you might otherwise have no contact with and gives you an opportunity to see the industry from a unique perspective. Q. What’s your favourite volunteering memory? A. My favourite volunteering memory is from WOC 2016. I put a call on the volunteers Facebook group for someone to take a box of lunches to the volunteers WAY over at the other of the exhibition centre, and Arek showed up on a skatebord to do it!
TRISH FERGUSON VOLUNTEER COORDINATOR Q. What is your day job? How has it prepared you for volunteering? I manage a cafe. Coordinating volunteers is just managing really, sorting things out, keeping track, problem solving...paperwork. Same except scaled up.
Q. If you could give a potential volunteer some advice, what would it be? A. Think about what you can offer as a volunteer, and be clear about that on your application. You will be more relaxed and enjoy the experience more if you are confident in your abilities, especially if it is your first time. And people rely on you to be able to do what you say you can.
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MEET THE WCE!
ADVISORY BOARD
Directors Drewry Pearson (Treasurer) David Veal Ric Rhinehart Peter Giuliano Advisory Members Marcus Boni (Chair) Mike Yung (2015 Chair) James Shepherd (2014 Chair) Bart Deprez Carl Sara Dan Streetman Stephen Morrissey Yoshihito Kato
STAFF
2016 was a huge year for WCE that couldn’t have happened without our amazing staff!
Amy Ball Cindy Ludviksen Managing Director Events Creative Director Durham, USA Los Angeles, USA
Laura Lee Director of Business Development Riverside, USA
Matt Slater International Re:co Symposium Director Leeds, UK
Connor Clarke Alex Bernson Communications Marketing & Coordinator Communications Dublin, Ireland Manager New York City, USA
James Draper Event Services Coordinator Manchester, UK
Irene Beretta Roukiat Delrue Events Coordinator National Bodies London, UK Manager Guatemala City, Guatemala
Nathan Slabaugh Media Specialist Spokane, USA
Veronica Chou Irene Dennehy Financial Manager Sales Associate Taipei, Taiwan Dublin, Ireland
Kyonghee Shin Competitions Administrator San Francisco, USA
Shelby Paul Re:co Event Manager Camarillo, USA
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