Vancouver and the National Barista Championship

Having returned from a week of travel to Vancouver for the CNBC, there are a lot of things that I’ve been reflecting on. We had great experiences at a lot of places in, around and on the way to Vancouver, and we met some really great people. The coffee scene in Vancouver was amazing to experience, so many cafes with solid, unique takes on coffee and the coffee experience. We only stopped at a few cafes due to how busy we were with the competition and it felt like we were just experiencing the tip of the iceberg. Some that we stopped at were JJ Bean, 49th, Elysian, Wicked and Cafe Crema in West Vancouver. All of these guys have some seriously awesome things going on at their cafes and are definitely worth checking out if you’re over there.
The competition didn’t quite go as we had hoped (our guys didn’t come in first and second) but our guys did an awesome job, and we learnt a tonne that we can take back to the cafe. At the same time, there is no doubt that we will be even stronger next year, although I expect that next year will bring a multitude of awesome baristi with whom we’ll have to contend. With how unbelievably difficult the competition was this year, with so many solid competitors, will we be seeing a Canadian winning the WBC in 2010 or 2011? I think we have a strong enough field of competitors in Canada now, it could definitely happen.
There is one last thing that I would like to talk about in regards to Vancouver… the amazing pubs (Irish Heather and Alibi Room and cocktail bar (Pourhouse) that we went to that also felt like only a hint of a much larger scene. I loved the unique experience of each of these places had to offer, each of which could have easily become (time to steal a line from *$) “my third place”. Of course, my wife would have something to say about that…
Anyway, I wanted to share a little of the excitement that I came back from Vancouver with; that sense of renewal that comes from enjoying new tastes and experiences. Really, it’s a reawakening, reminding me of what I love about the sharing of vices. Speaking of which, I almost cried when I tasted the double baked almond croissant from Thomas Haas… It was so delicious that I’m content not having another almond croissant for a long time. Oh yeah, and you can get some of his pastries at 49th Parallel.
For a good post about Mike’s experience in Vancouver, check out my co-workers’ blog: Here

Busy, busy

Well, I’ve been keeping busy working in our roasterie… cupping, tasting espresso, getting comfortable with our sample roaster… “helping” Ben and Mike prepare for Nationals. Really, we’ve all been very busy due to our new shop opening (hopefully) early next month in Marda Loop. Autumn has come, and our supplies of green coffee are increasing, so a lot of work has been going into vacuum sealing all it (I supervised).

Anyway, after my roasting friday afternoon, I realized that I have a very long way to go in fully understanding all of the variables involved in coffee roasting. I’ve been doing a lot of reading, and so many things I read conflict with each other. Airflow, time before first crack, time between first crack and the end of the roast… my head has been spinning, maybe due to the 180 page doctoral thesis about coffee roasting I just finished. I think the best way for me to improve my knowledge of roasting at this point is to do some experimentation and cup my results. So, my first plan is to roast some batches of the same coffee on full, medium and low airflow. After that I’ll try some roast level and roast profile curve adjustments. If anyone has some good ideas about roast experiments, please feel free to let me know.

Irrelevant to my writing about roasting, here are a couple of blog posts that I’ve found especially interesting recently. Indonesians by Grady Buhler of JJBean and Strength by James Hoffmann.

Anyway, if you’re in Vancouver, or will be for the Canadian National Barista Championship, I will see you there. Which reminds me, I still need to decide on a Champagne in case Ben or Mike win. See you there!

Nordic Barista Cup!

I’ve just been following the Nordic Barista Cup’s live blog, it’s such an amazing event and I think everyone should check it out. It’s a team competition, where the host country (this year: Iceland) decides what the competition is going to be. The point of this one: to take 15 kilos of green coffee, roast it, grind it and brew it. Without a roaster, grinder or brewer (of course this is only one small part of this multi-faceted competition). Another part of the competition: taste 4 locally brewed coffee beers, and identify the origin of the coffee used in them. Basically, it’s an inquiry based competition, to borrow my wife’s school’s teaching style. Oh yeah, and the winning team gets to travel to Costa Rica to explore the coffee regions there. We need to bring something like this to Canada… I’m thinking city based teams. Check it out: Here

Prairies Regional Barista Championship

Congratulations to all of the competitors in the Prairies Regional. Everybody did awesome.
Top 6 were:
6: Jimmy Oneschuk from Museo Coffee in Saskatoon – 476
5: Our very own Mike Tam from Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters – 602.5
4: Josh Hockin from Transcend Coffee – 607
3: Chad Moss from Transcend Coffee – 628
2: Joel May from Fratello Coffee Roasters – 628.5
1: Our very own (and my coachee) Ben Put from Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters – 632
Top 4 go to Nationals!!!

Cycling to work.

Well, spring has finally come to Calgary, it seems like it’s going to stick around for a while.  So I’ve been riding my bike to work a little more now (2 out of 5 days).  Of course the first day that I rode, it was raining pretty solidly.  It looks like that might happen again today.  I feel very out of shape this year.  I didn’t go snowboarding as much this winter, and I missed out on being able to ride my bike for quite a while due to my broken hand.  However, this is all inconsequential.  The fact is that we, as in Phil & Sebastian Coffee Co.  will be opening  a new café in Marda Loop this fall.  We’re also working on finishing the work on our new roasterie.  Our roaster came in from Holland a couple of weeks ago, a rebuilt Probat UG-15 (I’m not sure of the year).  I think we can expect to see some of the coffee (roasted by us) hit the shop June-ish.  Oh yes, for any wine geeks out there… Metrovino just got in (again) the Gaston Chiquet 1999 Blanc de Blancs d’Ay Magnum.  One is already set aside for me!

Cupping European Coffees

Last week, the boys came back from Europe loaded up with coffee.  After a pretty serious cupping table, I found out that one of my favourite coffees on the table was the Honduras Cup of Excellence #4, Cielito Lindo from Tim Wendelboe.  This is by far the best Honduras that I’ve ever, personally, tasted.  It was so balanced, nice sweetness, fresh acidity, and subtle complexity with citrus and tropical fruit.  Other highlights were two Ethiopia Arichas, one from Tim Wendelboe and one from Coffee Collective.

Breaking Bones

I recently (Tuesday) broke a bone in my left hand while snowboarding.  It’s amazing how much you miss having the use of two hands.  In the cafe, I’ve been relegated to working the till, non-stop; the only position that doesn’t require two hands and it still takes me longer than normal.  Only 3.5 – 7.5 weeks left until I’ll be able to take my cast off, thank goodness I’ve learnt how to type relatively effectively with one hand!  Now, if only we had a Swift, I’d be able to pull shots (of  a sort).  Of course, one handed steaming would probably give better results.

Pork Six Ways

Tonight Kevin from Knifewear and Steph from Farm put together the Pork Six Ways class at The Cookbook Company Cooks.  I’m not in the class, but I did get the opportunity to check out the wine pairings.  Plus, they made sure to bring us some of their amuse-bouche, bacon caramel pecan popcorn.  We’re on our third bowl.  Did I mention my mouth is starting to hurt from all the sugar?  Anyway, I’m really hoping that we get to taste some more of the dishes because they all sounded fantastic.  We have been smelling the pork roasting all day long.  Makes me want to go back to Montreal to Au Pied de Cochon.  Mmm…

Randomnessossity

 

Jason working the La Marzocco

 

 

It’s amazing what you can find when you google the name of the company you work for.  I found this picture that shows the real talent behind Phil & Sebastian.  Oh, It’s me!  Seriously though, we’ve got a great team right now, and it’s only getting better.  We’ve been experimenting with a lot of new things since Phil competed in the Canadian Barista Championship, Espresso blends, ristretto style espressi versus more traditional espressi, modified staub tamping.  It’s all so exciting.  To Mark Prince, I got a chance to check out your tamper prototype.  I like.  Please get them into production soon so we can start using one in our shop.  Pretty Please…

The Newest Things

Sweeet…

I thought I would share the latest random coffee related video. Yay. As a side note, it looks like some of us will be headin’ out to Montreal to watch Phil take on the rest of Canada at the Canadian Barista Championship next month. The plan is to check out the sites, visit some cafes, watch the action, hopefully go to Au Pied de Cochon, hopefully watch Phil in the Finals and (this is very unlikely) go watch the Montreal Impact. They’re just doing so well right now in Concacaf Champions League.