Competitive coffee – How I became a barista competition judge

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Day 2 - Judgement Day

Brrriiiiingg! Brrriiiiingg! Brrriiiiingg!

My eyes popped open and I looked around, trying to figure out where I was. The room was still dark. What the hell? Will someone shut that bell off please?—I thought, half-dazed. Then I remembered—the bell was my 5:15 alarm going off. It was Thursday, January 26, and I was supposed to go to Tacoma for the 2012 Northwest Regional Barista Championships (NWRBC). Yawning, I rolled slowly out of bed, grabbed a quick breakfast and made my way to the bus stop by 5:50am.

The bus took me to meet Brandon Arends, who was driving us up to Tacoma. The NWRBC didn’t start until Friday, but we were going up a day early to get certified as judges for the competition. Over the last year, ever since we volunteered together at the 2011 NWRBC, Brandon has been trying to get me to try judging. For a long time, I was reluctant because I didn’t think I had enough relevant coffee experience. It’s one thing to regularly drink and write about coffee, and quite another to be working with it all the time. He finally convinced me though, which is why I found myself rolling up I-5 towards Tacoma at 6:15am.

I was a little nervous about the day ahead. I didn’t know what to expect at the training because I had waited until the last minute to register and never got the email with the day’s schedule and instructions. Brandon, who registered on time, had given me a little advice on Wednesday night, when we discussed our travel plans.

“Make sure you check out the rules and the score sheet,” he told me.

“I’ll do it,” I replied, not really intending to do much studying.

I should have heeded his warning a little more closely.

Tacoma – center of haute café (for a few days, at least)

The barista competition was once again being held at the Tacoma Convention Center in downtown Tacoma, where bail bonds shops outnumber specialty cafés. Since Tacoma is not the hotbed of coffee in the Northwest, you might wonder why the SCAA decided to hold its convention here two years in a row. I know I did.

Brandon suggested two reasons. First, Tacoma’s proximity to SEA-TAC airport makes it easy to travel there. Second, it would have been Portland’s turn to host, except that the city is hosting the United States Barista Championship in April. My theory is that if the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) held both competitions in Portland, it would be too openly admitting that Portland is the center of the universe when it comes to specialty coffee. Portlanders already know this to be true, but we wouldn’t want to hurt Seattle’s feelings.

Whatever the reason, the Tacoma Convention Center makes a good spot for the competition. It has lots of space, there’s free parking just a couple blocks away, and hotel rates in Tacoma are reasonable (late January is the low season for tourists in Tacoma).

Ready or not…

We scooted in through front doors at 9am and took our places at the only available seats in the room (the training was kind of like going to church—if you arrive late, you sit up front). The head judges welcomed everyone and introduced themselves before going over the protocol for becoming a judge. Each of the head judges had worked in the coffee industry and had years of experience judging competitions all over the world.

But what about the rest of us? What type of people are judges for barista competitions? Most of the people in the room worked full time in the coffee industry, as trainers, café managers, baristas, marketers—all types of roles.

However, not everyone had years of experience in the industry, so I didn’t feel as out of place as I thought I might. One woman was a writer from Seattle who was trying to learn more about coffee. Another woman had only worked in coffee for a year. She had never been to a competition before, but her manager encouraged her to come to judge.

After introductions, our teacher said it was time to take the certification test, and that we “have to get an 80% on the exams to get your certification to judge.”

Test?! Already? Eighty percent? I felt a whoosh of air around me as the test takers gasped in unison.  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t get the memo about knowing the rules beforehand.  Could they really expect us to know how to judge before we got there?

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I recalled Brandon’s advice from the night before. At least I had read through the rules in the car on the ride up to Tacoma.

How much do you know?

I started down through the exam, which consisted of multiple-choice questions and fill-in-the-blank questions about both technical and sensory elements. The test took me nearly an hour to complete and covered the USBC rules and the official competition score sheet. It had questions like, “How do you judge the integrity of an espresso’s crema?” and “How thick does the foam on a cappuccino have to be for the drink to be eligible to receive a “Very Good” score?”

As I worked my way through the exam, I pictured myself back in college, sweating my way through an English literature exam I hadn’t prepared for. I employed every trick in the book I could think of, eliminating obviously incorrect answers and leafing through the different sections of the test for clues.

When everyone had finished the exam, we took a short break before resuming our training. Multiple people I talked to during the break were pessimistic about their results on the test.

It’s not getting easier

After we had been tested for our knowledge of the rules, we moved on to actually figuring out what made a good drink and what didn’t. One of the most difficult things about judging is to get all the judges to grade consistently between competitors. This process is known as calibration. The head judges showed us slides of what to look for when we looked at a good espresso crema (and a bad one). The crema is the foamy layer that sits on top of an espresso. It is formed when the steam is forced through the coffee grounds, emulsifying the oils inside. 

In each slide, the crema looked a little different. We discussed how they differed and which deserved good scores and which did not. The session helped us better understand the official standards of the competition.  We then took a quiz, looking at several photos of espressos of varying quality.

Just before the lunch break, we did a triangulation test to check our palates. I propose another name for it: the Sesame Street test (“one of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn’t belong…”). A triangulation test is an exercise where three coffees are set out on a table together. Two of them are the same and the other one is different.  The testers sip each one and mark down which of the three is different.

If I felt fairly confident about the capabilities of my palate before Thursday, I finished the triangulation test wondering if I had ever tasted coffee before in my life. We did six groups of three, and I was confident about only two of the groups. The rest of them were similar enough that I ended up guessing. I figured I had failed the test and would end up washing dishes instead of judging.

Everyone seemed relieved when lunch was served. As we gathered around the buffet table, I overheard several people in shock at the difficulty of the triangulation test. I don’t know if it really helps to know you aren’t the only one struggling, but I know I felt a whole lot better after eating.

After lunch, the head judges gave us our test results. By some miracle, I had passed! I was relieved (the judges also passed around a new exam for those who needed to re-take it. It turns out the first test was not our only opportunity to become a judge—but we didn’t know that at the time).

The real calibration – testing drinks

When everyone had their tests done, the group finally got down to calibrating with real drinks. We went to the main hall where the three espresso machines had been set up for the competition. Technical judges grouped up at one machine, and the sensory judges divided into two groups and gathered around the other machines. Each machine was staffed by a barista who made us a variety of drinks. Our barista tried to vary the quality of the shots he made, attempting to make the calibration more like the competition.

We began by evaluating espressos. Espresso is the main focus of the Barista Championships. Espresso is the most difficult type of coffee to make well and make consistently. If a barista wants to score well, he or she needs to make great espresso, not only in the espresso course, but also in the cappuccino and signature beverage course. As the baristas pumped out the espressos, the trainers let us write down our impressions, helping us keep to the regulations in the rulebook.

The calibration was fun, but challenging. All of the judges who were new to the certification process were reluctant to make a definitive score for each of the drinks we tried. We would taste a drink then look to our trainer for guidance, instead of writing down the score we thought it deserved. After a while, when we had evaluated shot after shot and cappuccino after cappuccino, we began to get a pretty good sense of what was good according to standard and what was not.

Each drink gets the following scores. Unacceptable=0, Acceptable=1, Average=2, Good=3, Very Good=4, Excellent=5 or Extraordinary=6. You can give scores with half-point increments, but no scores of 0.5 are allowed, and the head judge must approve any scores of Extraordinary. As we practiced judging, we were encouraged to use the words instead of the numbers in order to accustom ourselves to the official scoring language. The language helped us score the drinks more accurately.

We finally finished up the calibration about quarter to six. The head judges sent us home and told us to be back at 11am the next morning. We were well-caffeinated and ready to go find some dinner. My fears about being judged unworthy to be a judge had not been realized. When we got the schedule for Friday, I was assigned to the first, third and fifth competitors. I knew I would be nervous, but thanks to our trainers, I felt confident that I would do a good job.

Return of the Links

Break out your umbrellas! After a dry December, the rain has returned to the Rose City—and how! We’re pushing record levels of precipitation over the last few days and the forecast is for a lot more over the next week. Meanwhile, I received an email from a friend in Orlando who said it was 82 degrees and sunny there today. Do you suppose there is good coffee down there? Might be worth taking a trip to find out.

Don’t let the gray get you down, though, there are plenty of things to do inside. Here are a few links to take your mind off the weather for a while:

This story about DD made me want start a campaign “Stop! America does not run on….well, you know.” The last thing this country needs is more opportunities to by more sugar, fat and mediocre coffee.

David Lynch, who produced Twin Peaks,  is obsessed with coffee, though he is down to only seven cups per day (from a high of twenty).

Headed to Seoul? Check this café out.

For the environment, which is worse—throwing nine billion (9,000,000,000!) K-cups into a landfill, or making coffee and not drinking all of it? This article from the Kansas City Star takes a look at that question.

The political philosopher Leo Strauss once wrote that democracies need apathetic populations to function properly. Apparently that’s true for dictatorships too. Coffee consumption has a history of scaring rulers bent on controlling their people, according to NPR. In some cultures in the past, coffee drinkers faced capital punishment for sipping up. Imagine what such a policy would do to the population of the Pacific Northwest.

The Northwest Barista Championship is coming up next week in Tacoma. Here’s the link to the competition’s site, where you can see the schedule of events and (soon, hopefully) the list of competitors (currently there’s a nice video from last year’s event on the site too, by the way!).

Stay dry (and out of low-lying areas)!

The Sensuality of Great Coffee

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It is no surprise that people love to drink coffee. The café experience touches all of the five senses, deeply.

Sights

We are attracted to beautiful things, and coffee is no exception. A great café encounter begins with an opening glance. Upon entering a shop, our eyes inform us of the quality of the coffee that is to come.

Seated at a corner table, we observe the café surrounding us. A skilled barista works efficiently behind the bar, her hands moving deftly between machine, milk and cup. She gently sways the milk pitcher as she pours its contents into the espresso, casting delicate sepia-toned rosettes on the surface of a latte. Velvety foam rests on top of a cappuccino, blanketing the drink like a down comforter on a cold winter morning. The thick, brown crema on the surface of an espresso glistens with the flavor oils trapped inside it.

On the pour-over bar, steady-handed baristas pour delicate, even streams of water in smooth spiral patterns, coaxing out the complex flavors contained in the mahogany-colored grounds. At one end of the bar, a vacuum pot sits on top of the counter, a throwback to an earlier time in this modern setting. Brought to life by a brilliant orange infrared lamp, tiny bubbles cling to the side of the pot as the water heats up, glowing in the neon light. When the temperature breaks the boiling point, the pot transforms into a cauldron of angry lava, bubbling and bursting on the surface.  The vacuum pot mesmerizes all who gaze upon it and curious customers cannot help but stare in awe.   

Smells

Coffee has a bouquet of fragrances that attract people to it, and a good café delights your olfactory senses with the smell of freshly-ground coffee. The aroma is sweet and fruity, smoky and earthy. When the barista grinds a new batch of beans for the brewer, a wave of aroma washes out across the café. The smell envelopes you, enticing your taste buds in anticipation of the first sip of a freshly-brewed cup.

Sounds

Beans rasp loudly as they fall from brown paper bags into the grinders’ hoppers. The grinder whirrs aggressively, growling out the fresh coffee into the basket below it. A loud thud reverberates through the café as the barista knocks spent espresso out of the portafilter Steam bursts out of the wand into the milk with a thump, then hisses and whooshes as it whips the milk into a cloud of frenzied bubbles.

Nearby, a miniature metal spoon scrapes the side of a ceramic cup, clinking softly as it mixes sugar into espresso. In some cafés, the din of a bulky black roaster dominates, and customers must raise their voices to be heard by the people across the table from them. Lovers longing to whisper secrets or engage in quiet conversation content themselves to communicate with their eyes and expressions. Coffee beans pop and crackle as they flow out of the roaster’s drum, each bean still burning inside. They calm quickly, as fresh air pulled by powerful fans is drawn across them.

Touch

Your hands gently cradle a cup that is too hot to hold securely. The crema of an expertly-poured shot of espresso is silky smooth, lightly coating your mouth with a delicate film of flavor that keeps the memory of the coffee on the tip of your tongue. When you lift a cappuccino to your mouth, your lips note the warm smoothness of the ceramic mug, followed by the billowy softness of the milk. It is like burying your face in the soft, warm crook of a lover’s neck. The flavors of a full-bodied French press coffee swell inside the mouth, continuing to expand even after the coffee has long since disappeared.

Taste

The climax of the coffee experience is the moment when the coffee finally reaches your mouth. Single-origin coffees can be refreshingly simple, with notes of stone fruits or berries or citrus. Blends are more complex, defined by the regions from which they came. Certain coffees are earthy, like the leaves that cover the ground in the fall. Other coffees are chocolaty and luscious. Some remind you of nothing more than coffee, but the flavor brings back something from your past, perhaps time spent with an old friend. Great coffee, whether it is brewed, poured or combined with milk delights the taste buds, sends them into ecstasy.

Sensory and sensual—both words describe the ideal café experience. Coffee satisfies the craving that began when you walked into the café, or perhaps when you rolled out of bed with coffee on your mind. It stimulates your senses and sometimes, even your soul.

Barista theory – Dialing it in

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In conversations with baristas about espresso, one of the things they always seem to be talking about is “dialing it in.” As an expression, the phrase means that they want to make the espresso great. In practice, it means that they are adjusting their equipment to make sure that you get the right combination of grind (particle size) and dose (amount) of coffee. Literally, it involves moving the dial on the grinder towards coarser or finer.

If you stop in at your favorite specialty coffee shop and watch the baristas during a busy period, you will probably notice that they keep filling up the hoppers on top of the grinders, without letting the amount of beans get too low down the sides. A barista at one of my regular coffices explained to me why doing this is so important.

As the weight of the beans pressing down toward the burrs of the grinder changes, so does the grind. When the beans get lighter, the pressure they exert is lower and the grind becomes coarser, so you have to turn down the dial on the grinder. Conversely, if you have a grinder adjusted properly for a hopper with few beans in it and then fill up the hopper, you need to open up the burs a little to compensate for the extra weight. Maintaining a constant level in the hopper helps the barista make consistent shots without having to adjust the grinder each time.

Keeping the hoppers filled is not the only thing the baristas must watch. When the ambient temperature and humidity rise or fall during the day, the grind changes too.  According to another barista, some days the beans just do not want to cooperate, as if they had their own personality. Regardless of what causes the changes, baristas must watch the grind very closely to make sure that their shots stay consistent. They measure the consistency by watching the flow of espresso as it pours out of the machine, by measuring how long the shot takes to pull and also by tasting the occasional shot.

As baristas gain experience, they learn to instinctively adjust their equipment to accommodate changes in the beans and the grind. They start making more consistent shots and drinks and they can do it more quickly. As a customer, you might not be aware of the little details that go into making your drink, but you don’t need to be, because your barista takes care to “dial it in” for you. 

2011 World Barista Championship - Alejandro Mendez, Campeón!

This past weekend, the 2011 World Barista Championships took place in Bogotá, Colombia. For the first time ever, a competitor from a coffee-growing country won first place. El Salvador’s Alejandro Mendez won the competition, beating out the US’ Pete Licata, who finished second after having the highest score in the semi-finals.

Mendez put on an impressive display of coffee knowledge, enthusiasm and creativity. For his signature beverage, Mendez combined flavors from all parts of the coffee plant. He made an infusion from dried coffee flowers (that he had collected himself), one from the mucilage (the fruit pulp), another from the cascara (dried skin from the coffee fruit) and combined all of them with an espresso made from the roasted coffee beans. His goal was to give the judges the entire flavor of the coffee tree. The commentators (yes, the broadcast has commentators, much like golf) thought that this was the first time anyone had combined all of these elements into a beverage (you can see the video here. Mendez’ finals performance starts at about 1:30 into the video and lasts 15 minutes).

If you watch the video of the performance, you will notice Mendez’ deep knowledge of the coffee, his attention to detail and his willingness to try unconventional techniques. Mendez tells the story of how he tested his espresso at the same altitude as Bogota and found that 14 days post-roast was the best day to use it for the competition. He also made a very bold move when he had the judges strain off the crema from the espressos before they drank them. Personally, I question whether this should be allowed, because the crema is an integral part of the espresso experience. However, the judges allowed it, and it certainly helped to make his performance memorable.

Mendez’ win is more impressive because he was competing in English, which did not appear to be his first language. Imagine if the other competitors had to learn the language of the host country in order to compete—that would make it much more challenging. That is what the competitors from non-English-speaking countries have had to do for years.

The 2011 competition was the first time the championships have been held in a coffee-growing country (excluding the small amount of coffee that is grown in Hawaii), which was a big deal for the coffee industry. One of the biggest social issues involved with coffee production/consumption is the fact that for years, coffee producers in developing countries have not benefited from the increase in value of coffee as it was roasted, brewed and sold to customers at high markups.

Coffee-importing countries placed tariffs and quotas on roasted coffee in order to protect their own roasters, which hampered the development of a roasting industry in coffee-growing regions. The system led to much of the value of the coffee crop leaving poorer countries and moving to richer countries.

Today, the specialty coffee industry is trying to make the distribution of the value of the coffee more equitable, and by holding the barista championship in Colombia, the SCAA/SCAE has raised awareness about coffee production and demonstrated its respect for the coffee-growing countries. Hopefully, it will not be another decade before the competition is held in one of these countries, nor will it be surprising when a barista from El Salvador, Colombia, Rwanda or any other coffee producer brings home the top prize.

Congratulations to Alejandro Mendez, the 2011 World Barista Champion.

[If you want  a more complete 2011 WBC wrap-up, complete with lots of photos, visit Barista Magazine’s blog here.]

Barista Profile – Thomas Suprenant

[Over the last several months, I have spent quite a few hours in cafés, learning about coffee and giving my impressions of the cafés. It has been fun. There are so many good cafés and I have been spoiled to be able try so many different (and high-quality) coffees. While I love the adventure, one of the downsides of doing this is that I feel an obligation to keep looking for new cafés all the time, and I never really become a regular at any of them.

Over the next few weeks, I hope to focus more on the people and the stories behind the coffee shops in this city as opposed to the cafés themselves. I am still going to write the occasional café review (there are more cafés that I want to visit), but that will be less of a focus. Instead, I will be working to meet people and talk about a variety of coffee-related things. If you are someone who has a café, is a barista, roasts coffee or just loves coffee and has a unique story to tell, let me know what you are up to and I will share your story here. I would like to interview you and learn more about the great things you are doing (if you are doing something great that is not related to coffee, we can figure out some tie-in, even if we just sit down over a cup of good coffee). The following is the first post in that direction.]

Thomas Suprenant is one of the skilled baristas at Cellar Door Coffee Roasters. In the picture above, he is competing at his first Northwest Regional Barista Championship in January. On my recent stop at the café, Thomas gave me a tour and sat down to tell me a little bit of his own story. Many thanks to Cassie, the other barista on duty, for taking care of the café while we were talking.

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My first trip to the NWRBC

On Friday, January 28^th I attended my first barista championship—the Northwest Regional Barista Championship (NWRBC), held in Tacoma, Washington. If you didn’t know that the NWRBC was happening, don’t feel too bad—I didn’t even know it existed until last fall, when I interviewed Brandon Arends.

Brandon is probably the biggest coffee enthusiast I have ever met—he is as enthusiastic, knowledgeable and opinionated as any of the highly-skilled baristas and café owners I have met around Portland—so I was glad when he agreed to go to Tacoma with me. On the trip up, he told me all about the competition and about the experiences he had volunteering at previous regional and national barista championships.

Before we went up to Tacoma, Brandon got in touch with Marcus Boni, Marketing Director for the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), to see if we could volunteer. Brandon had worked for him at the NWRBC in 2009 when it was held in Portland, and Marcus was happy to let us volunteer. I was excited because volunteering would give me a closer look into the competition.

We left Portland on Friday about 7am, giving us time to stop for coffee along the way. We stopped at Lava Java, near Ridgefield, Washington, which turned out to be a great stop, despite my initial reservations. I’ll share that story with you soon.

The NWRBC is the first step in the path toward the US Barista Championship (USBC). Finalists at the regional level are eligible to compete in the USBC, which you might say is kind of like the Miss America pageant for coffee nerds. The Northwest region covers Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming and anyone who lives or works in one of those states is eligible to compete at the NWRBC.

Walking into the competition area at the Tacoma Convention Center felt somewhat familiar, even though it was my first time attending the championship. The large conference room smelled just like walking into a specialty coffee shop in Portland. The sweet, toasty smell of freshly-ground coffee greeted us as we entered, and I saw many faces in the room that I recognized. Some of them had been at Coffee Fest in Seattle and others I had seen or talked to around Portland. One of the first people I recognized was Nathanael May, from Portland Roasting Coffee. He had come up earlier in the week to get certified as a judge for the competition. He told me that the certification test was more difficult than he thought it would be, but he passed and was going to judge the second day of competition.

Brandon and I went over to talk to Marcus, who assigned us to station maintenance. It would be our job clean up the stage after each barista competed and make sure that the espresso machines were immaculate.

The room was a typical conference room, and up front there were three different performance areas. Each of the areas consisted of a Nuova Simonelli espresso machine, an adjoining preparation table and a high presentation table where the four sensory judges would sit and taste the drinks.

Three stations, waiting for competitors

The competition works like this: competitors have 15 minutes of preparation time to set up their area. The baristas set out their tools, pitchers and cups, go over any last-minute adjustments on the grinders and set out any other props they have for the presentation. The competition is a combination of skill and style, so many of the set-ups were fairly elaborate. The baristas set out napkins and saucers for each of the sensory judges and many of the place settings resembled that of a fancy restaurant.

One interesting place setting

At the end of the 15-minute prep time, the judges come out and shake hands with the competitor before taking their positions. Each competitor is judged by a total of seven people: two technical judges, four sensory judges and a head judge. The technical judges hover around the grinders and espresso machine as the baristas grind the coffee, pull shots and steam and pour the milk. They are looking at all of the little details that go into making the drinks. Baristas are expected to dose and tamp the coffee correctly without wasting coffee, flush the group heads before pulling shots and to keep the stations clean while they work. The judges closely watch all of these.

The four sensory judges sit at the presentation table and it is their job to evaluate the beverages. They stir, smell and taste the drinks to evaluate their consistency, balance, mouth feel and overall quality. They also judge the competitors on their presentation skills and enthusiasm for the coffee.

The sensory judges, listening attentively to Bryan Arndt, from Coeur D'Alene, Idaho

The head judges have the role of making sure that the sensory judges and technical judges are judging in a consistent manner. They taste all of the drinks so that they have an idea of how the judges should score the drinks. If one judge has a score that is abnormally high or low, they can correct the score. Head judges have a lot to watch, but their scores do not count toward the competitor’s score.  They essentially referee the other judges.

As you might imagine, there is a long list of technical and sensory specifications that the judges are looking for (If you’re interested, the rules and regulations for the Barista Championship can be found here). It takes both technical skills and presentation skills to be a champion. According to the USBC rules, a champion barista is someone who:

1. Has mastery of technical skills, craftsmanship, communication skills and who is passionate about their profession, in addition to service.
2. Has a broad understanding of coffee knowledge and serves high quality beverages.
3. May serve as a role model and a source of inspiration for others.

In other words, a barista has to have the skills and passion necessary to be an ambassador for the specialty coffee industry. That is the overarching goal of these championships—to promote the craft of specialty coffee and elevate the standards of coffee as a beverage.

The baristas have 15 minutes to make a total of 12 drinks: four single espressos, four cappuccinos and four specialty drinks they have created on their own. They have to work quickly and efficiently as they describe to the judges what they are doing. The limited amount of time adds pressure to the competition. A large red LED timer is posted at each station and during the competition, you can feel the tension in the room rising as each barista nears the allotted 15 minutes. Most of the baristas finished on time, but there were a few who didn’t quite make it. They generally got hung up when they made their specialty beverages too complex.

To give you a better idea of the way the competition goes, I shot some video of Ashley Rauch, from Sterling Coffee Roasters in Portland, explaining her espresso selection to the judges. She was competing in her first competition and was a little nervous, but she did a nice job (and finished within the time limits). You can see how she put a lot of thought into her presentation. Take note of her descriptions of the complex aromas and flavors that the judges can expect when they taste the espresso.

Being a barista is truly an art. I like to joke about the tattoos and interesting fashion that baristas are known for, but when it comes down to it, a barista’s skills make a huge difference in the way your drink tastes. They are the final step in a very long, complex process that brings the coffee from where it is grown to your cup. As Brandon said to me, if baristas think about how complex the process is to produce high-quality coffee beans, they should feel an obligation to prepare it in the best manner possible. As consumers, we should appreciate their efforts.

Brandon, making sure that the machine is spotless

About half way through the competition, I was re-assigned to busing tables. After each round of drinks was judged by the sensory judges, I had to help remove the drinks from the table. It was more fun than station maintenance because I had a closer view of the baristas in action and could more easily taste the drinks that the baristas made.

Speaking of tasting the drinks, I probably tried about 40 different beverages throughout the day. Even though I had just a sip of each one, all of the sips added up and by the end of the competition, I was floating around in a caffeine-induced haze.

The drinks I tried varied in quality. On our way up to Tacoma, Brandon and I had talked at length about what went into making a good cappuccino. He told me that the espresso needs to be able to stand up to the milk and create balance. Some of the more floral single-origin espressos tend to disappear when they are mixed with milk, making the cappuccino unbalanced. At the competition, I probably tasted 15 different cappuccinos and now I understand what he was talking about. Some of them had very little coffee flavor, while others were much more balanced between the milk and the coffee. That’s one of the reasons that people like Stumptown’s Hair Bender Blend. When it is used to make a latte or cappuccino, you can still taste the coffee.

Watching the competition, you could tell that some of the baristas really enjoyed the spotlight. Confidence and a flair for performing were definitely two characteristics that separated the better competitors from the rest. On the first day of competition, Laila Ghambari of Stumptown Seattle and Ryan Wilbur of Stumptown Portland were the two competitors who seemed to most enjoy performing, so it was no surprise to me when they made the finals.

While most of the competitors at a competition work for a café, there are a few independents that compete too. One independent was Rick Cox, a self-described “super-passionate home barista” from Auburn, Washington. He developed a routine and competed at the NWRBC without support from a café. He didn’t make the finals, but hats off to him for having the courage to try. Becoming a competitive barista requires lots of practice, and the baristas who spend hours each day at their cafés honing their skills naturally have an advantage over non-affiliated baristas.

Rick Cox, at the beginning of his presentation

Even though it is a competition, the baristas are generally friendly and supportive of one another. They want each other to do well, because they know that ultimately, they are all trying to do the same thing—to help spread the word that producing specialty coffee is an art form. It is not something that can  just come out of a machine (McCafé, anyone?). It takes skill, practice and pride in the craft to become a great barista and that is why when you go to a great café you should always be appreciative of what the baristas are trying to do. They work hard to help you experience the coffee in the same way that they do.

After watching and helping with nineteen different performances over six hours, I left the convention center tired, but thankful that I had been a volunteer. It was much better to be an active participant than just a spectator. I learned a lot about what it takes to become a top-notch barista and enjoyed my front-row view. Next year, when the regional competition comes to Portland, I may try to become a judge. It would be a great way to learn more about this thing called specialty coffee, because once you start learning, you don’t want to stop.

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