Most people who are familiar with competitive cooking shows like Iron Chef have a good idea what WBC-sanctioned barista competitions are all about.  They are highly charged extravaganzas where aspiring barista superstars can take on their peers and emerge as the toast of the entire specialty coffee world.  What’s more, the recognition is there, not just for the top placers of the WBC, but for winners of the National and Regional championships as well. The winners from these competitions have been known to go on to sponsor products including equipment for making coffee. Klaus Thomsen, the 2006 WBC winner, co-produced and promoted a home machine on the basis of his uber-barista notoriety.  Winning a major barista championship is often seen as a ringing endorsement for a particular coffee or a local Third Wave cafe.  Think Billy Wilson, Think Stumptown Coffee. Think the Albina Press Cafe in Portland Oregon.  When you are that good at preparing coffee, the coffee you use, or the cafe where you work is of extreme interest to your fellow coffee geeks. The details of your coffee universe may also be of interest to those considering opening a new cafe or re-railing an existing cafe to a higher level. Your talents are admired and desired!

But the road to coffee fame and fortune is not short.  By the time a barista champion has reached the top tiers of competition, they are the veterans of countless smaller competitions and have put in hundreds of hours of practice & preparation.  Their coffee making skill is honed so is their dessert-making ability.  Why desserts?  Because creating a winning high-scoring signature drink these days requires knowledge that goes well beyond coffee basics.

So what do you have to do to get there? 

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Are you opening a cafe or planning to in the near future?  if you are, then I may have the perfect location for you:  right next door to Starbucks! 

Pictured here is a location that is actually available right now.  It offers the opportunity to go head-to-head with the industry’s Goliath–and your new store is smack in the heart of Seattle.  The Dragon’s lair, if you will!

At first this may seem utterly counter-intuitive.  Who in their right mind would open a competing cafe next to the biggest, most successful specialty coffee retailer in the world? A company identified as one of the most powerful brands on the planet by Brandz.  

The answer of course is You!  And especially if you plan to open a Third Wave Cafe–with a focus on quality products and training, and a hands-on approach to preparing coffee and serving customers.

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News has reached us that Dr Ernesto Illy, the founder of Illy Coffee (as-we-know-it), has died at age 83.   I met Dr Illy only once–back in the early 1990’s, when specialty coffee equalled Starbucks, at least in Seattle.  At that time, if there was one other company that stood out for its fanatical integrity around coffee, it was Illy.  Illy was an enigmatic brand because it’s name represented far more than just a lightly roasted espresso blend from Trieste.  It represented a man–Dr Illy. 

Dr Illy was a surprising mixture of product promoter and scientist.  The famous book he co-authored, Espresso: The Chemistry of Quality, is seldom read but often quoted.  This is because ( I assume) it is a highly empirical work, based on extensive laboratory studies, in a realm that far prefers the Art to the Science of espresso.  Terms like polyphasic colloidal foam (meaning crema) make his book a conjurer’s guide for anyone who wants to approach coffee from a scientific angle and impress friends and neighbors with a magical coffee lexicon.  Yet anyone who takes even a few minutes to learn something from Dr Illy’s work stands out in a field where most people like to talk about “tiger striping” and detect hints of blueberry syrup in their roasted beans. 

As much as Dr Illy brought science to the general field of coffee, and especially espresso, he also brought good will to the Illy brand of coffee.  I remember one time at Olive Garden in South Center, Dr Illy ordered an espresso after dinner, because Olive Garden was a large client of Illy USA.  When the slightly insecure waiter brought the sloppy concoction to the table, Dr Illy tasted it, smiled knowingly, and proclaimed it, “excellent”.   I just loved that because it was the right thing for him to say at that moment, for that less-than-perfect coffee, and he knew it.  The waiter left the table with new found confidence.    

Dr Illy was a wise, good man, with a big streak of fun that ran right to his very core.  He will be missed and remembered for as long as espresso is prepared and enjoyed.  (Eric)

Cup of Excellence and estate-identified coffees are receiving plenty of attention these days–not just around their provenance and terroir, but also with regard to specific preparation techniques and brewing parameters for getting the most out of them. Usually, these super-premium typicas and bourbons are filter brewed, French pressed, or Cloverized. However, I am also hearing more about original experimentation around using these highly desirable coffees as single origin espressos.

I have been warned that there are some problems with this idea, since espresso coffees are purpose blended for higher temperature extractions under greater pressure than pure brewing. French press and Clover devices do apply a small amount of pressure beyond that created by natural gravity, but these remain essentially saturation-style brewing machines. At this point in specialty coffee’s evolution, French press (and to a lesser extent Clover) remain the standards for optimizing the flavor and body that premier single origin coffees offer. Read the rest of this entry »

I am sure by now most of us have heard of the Panama Esmeralda that Caffe Artigiano was selling for $15 per cup. This post isn’t discussing the taste of the coffee, but rather the marketing of this coffee and what I noticed at Artigiano.

I have been to the Hornby location many times to study Artigiano and what goes on there. On occasion I would order a CoE coffee on the Clover and would choose my coffee off a faxed menu that came from…?…somewhere. The coffee was fine - but to be honest, I have never noticed another person other than myself order a CoE while I happened to be at the cafe. Also, if you’ve never been to this location - the Clover is hidden behind a wooden box with a mirror in front of it (?). So, great coffee, reading a description off a faxed menu, made on a Clover, hidden behind a box = 1 cup of CoE sold during the 15 - 20 minutes I’m in the cafe.

Next - I was in Vancouver in August and decided to drop by the Hornby location again to try out the Panama Esmeralda. Read the rest of this entry »