Absolutely Brilliant

SCAA and USBC 2010 are now finished. You’ll likely see considerable wrap-up coverage trickling out across the coffee blogosphere for days and weeks to come. Assuming the volcanic ash over Europe clears in time, the next big event will be the WBC, which takes place in London, on June 23rd to June 25th.

It’s fitting then that my single most memorable experience at SCAA 2010 took place at the WBC booth. As I walked up, the grinder was filled with the last few beans of Olympia Coffee Roaster’s Big Truck espresso blend, which I enjoyed very much earlier this year up at Coffeehouse 5 in Portland. But I was holding out for the bag of Spring Espresso blend from Square Mile Coffee Roasters sitting in its flat black bag on the bar.  Despite being the roaster of champions, coffee from Square Mile has thus far eluded me. I had hoped to find some coffee from Square Mile at the SCAA expo. I never imagined that it might be prepared by current world barista champion, Gwilym Davies, or that part owner and former world barista champion James Hoffman would be brought in on a consulting run.

I’ll dispel any suspense up front. We never did get a particularly good shot pulled. Although I did get at least one shot that started to reveal the intense sweet, red fruit this blend seemed capable of producing, the shots mysteriously kept stalling around the 20 second mark, leaving them something less than on target. It’s possible that the underlying problem had to do with American air which simply didn’t allow British carbon dioxide to properly de-gass. For a moment, I even hypothesized that the difficulty may have been the result of this coffee’s apparent time travel; the roast date erroneously read June 4, 2010.  Given the time I spent living in Scotland, you would think that I wouldn’t need to be corrected on the fact that Europeans format their dates differently.

What made this experience so terrific didn’t have to do with the coffee. It also didn’t have to do with hanging out at the bar with the current world champion. Although there were plenty of folks for whom that was a thrill. There was a pretty much non-stop snapping of photographs by people putting their arm around Gwilym, shaking his hand and getting their photo taken with him. The secret to why I enjoyed the experience – and likely much of the reason why he is such a good barista – is captured my earlier use of the word “we.”

The Spring Espresso blend needed to be dialed in, which Gwilym proceeded to do as a barista might, adjusting the grinder, pulling shots, tasting, examining, fiddling with other parameters and gradually trying to get the shot right. After a couple of shots, though, Gwilym brought me in to the picture. He showed me the shots and let me taste them. He asked my opinion about each and thought through the parameters to change with each shot out loud. I got to observe his process and his technique, but also got to be engaged thoroughly in that experience. It was a remarkably good espresso tutorial experience.

When he found he wasn’t getting anywhere, he turned to James who took a sip, made a frown and then stepped over to see what he could do. They conferred with one another, pulled some more shots and finally concluded that there was nothing to be done with this batch that day. Only time, or some different parameters would tell. After a little longer I moved on to a different booth. Although my palate hadn’t been entirely satisfied, my desire to learn and develop my understanding of coffee certainly had.

Coffee Consumed

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo much coffee. I’m not sure where to begin. There was the origin’s winners tasting, the roaster’s pick coffees, the barista competition brew bar, and the endless supply of places serving coffee on the expo hall floor. There were empressively elaborate kiosks by 49th Parallel Coffee (including a Mirage Tripplete lever and siphon bar), Intelligentsia/Ecco (with a V60/Uber and a Synesso with SO’s and Black Cat), Alterra (with rotating selection of coffees brewed via aeropress and Chemex and both their espresso blend and a rotating SO blend).  There were also each of the many other roaster and or equipment stalls all pouring a steady stream of espressos and coffees from top quality roasters.

49th Parallel Booth

Given the expo floor options, I won’t complain too much that the competition brew bar didn’t rotate its coffees more often (there was plenty of good coffee to be had). I had, however, been hoping for something closer to the fourth machine where coffees changed up hourly, with a posted schedule.

I do, however, feel the need to comment on the extraordinarily large number of shots of espresso I was served in paper cups, even if my palate was mostly too tired to discern any differences by the end of day 2.

Intelligentsia

For next year, I’d say a really good piece of schwag would be that every participant gets a small ceramic cup to tote about from one station to the next. Good for tasting and the environment. The other item could be spit cups.  By the end of Saturday, more than one barista serving me was shaking visibly and speaking insanely fast. Really. I was getting concerned.

Alterra

Favorites? So many, but here are a few of the more memorable coffees:

• 49th Parallel epic. Anise.  Lovely.
• Ecco El Salvador SO espresso. Brown sugar sweet with a hint of fruit.
• Alterra Too. Brazil SO espresso. Very round, buttery and bottom heavy.
• The origin/coffee of the year Peru Puno Tunki. Floral like I’ve never found in a Peru.

Manual Brewers

Manual Brewing featured prominently this year.  Probably the most prominent were the Hario V60 on brew bar stands with those little glass pitchers underneath. This type of set up could be seen at several Hario suppliers including Roust About and Intelli. 

The V60 in custom colors

 There was, of course, the not new, but ever redefining it’s image and yet always being tweeked as a brew method Aeropress, which I spotted at the Aeropress booth and at Alterra’s stand.

The ever trusty aeropress

 Then, there were a couple of new methods – or reworkings of the classic French Press.  The Espro press – a name that seems to be conflating two methods – is potentially a good device but one I’d need to do a bit more playing around with to confirm. It’s stainless steel french press – like the frieling – that has a special gizmo cylinder thingy on the bottom of the screen. The idea is that this cylinder thingy parts the grounds so that the press doesn’t force the water through the bulk of the grounds. The sales person kept referencing the Clover, but what came to mind for me was the Hoffman/Prince FP method where you scoop the grounds off the top (like cupping) before plunging. 

The Espro PressThe other FP variation was the Coffee Catcher which I was mostly excited to try because it involved demoing Water Ave's coffee. The goal here is also a cleaner FP experience. It involves a little screen like device that sits at the bottom of the FP. When you plunge the finest silt gets forced underneath, leaving less to end up in your cup. Again, I'd need to do a more thorough head to head to see the difference it makes, but in theory, I like the direction these FP innovations are going. The Coffee Catcher

The Next Generation of Cafe Filter Coffee

For anyone who’s been following the aftermath of the gradually diminishing Clover, there are several new possibilities on the horizon.  Of course, quite a few cafes are opting for completely manual methods such as hario V60’s and Chemex, but there are a few higher end items that promise cafes a more sophiticated, controlled brewing experience.

One of these is Bunn’s Trifecta, which you may well have seen some tid bits on.  The Trifecta brews its coffee in see through chamber with some lights, lots of turbulence and a bevy of brew parameter controls. It seems likely with Bunn’s marketing muscle that you’ll end up seeing this machine in a lot of cafes. My experience with a couple different coffees wasn’t bad. It actually reminded me of the more concentrated coffee you tend to get from an aeropress, however, and not something typical of pour over coffee. The potential for variability seems impressive, but I’m curious whether it will get used.

I got to see the Uber Boiler on display at both the WBC booth and, interestingly, the Intelligentsia booth. The Uber, if you’re not familiar with it, offers instant temperature control of a stream of water you can use for any of several pour over or French Press methods.  Since the boiler is installed below the counter it’s a pretty involved set up. The degree of control is wonderful – temperature, timing, and the built in scale. I’m not sure about speed though. A four station drip stand allows you to keep up with demand. I’m not sure how a cafe would make this work without installing several or brewing big pots.

I saw the Luminaire prototype at the Roust About booth. Roust About is Edwin Martinez company that was and still sort of is Hario USA. It’s the big importer of Hario products, but isn’t exclusively, or won’t be exclusively Hario products. The Luminaire is similar in concept to the Uber only sans boiler. The water is heated instantly inside the unit, meaning that no boiler installation is necessary. Uber or Luminaire? Sharks or Jets? 

Espresso Machines

I’ve listened in on plenty of demos – mostly just to get the free coffee. But, at this point, I  feel like I’ve learned a bit about the engineering PhD I need to go back and get if I want to be able to actually understand the potential of these things to take over the world. I’m excited about the potential for espresso.

You're sure not to miss the new LM

The AI operated Synesso - not yet partnered with the ipad

LM's Redstrata

Slayer Ripping through the EsmeraldaTwo sides to every slayer

Two sides to every slayer

Comic Con

Batman, Jedi Knights, Star Trek mini skirts, Captain Jack Sparrow, Elvis, Bat Girl…you name it, they are walking by out front…

USBC – So far this morning

There’s a live blog at http://usbc2010.tumblr.com/#scaa2010 and the live feed on the USBC site, but here are a few pics from the morning…

Mike Philips interviewing

prep room

Chris Baca performing

Chris Baca on the Jumbotron!

Nik Krankl performing

Lem Butler prepping

USBC Semi-Finals – the line up

Things wrapped up yesterday late as these coffee things tend to do.

Friday Night’s Semi-finals announcement

But they started off with a killer line-up this morning. 

Pictures from Friday

Take a look back at the previous posts. I added a new one and some pictures to the previous….

Welcome to my SCAA 2010 Live Blogging site

If you’ve managed to find your way to this blog then either I’ve done something right or you are a voracious consumer of coffee blogging.

The idea of this site is to provide me a way of regularly posting on what I’ll be doing at the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s 2010 Exposition and the 2010 US Barista Championship. While I will try to post a couple of pieces touching on the highlight of the event, I figured I needed a format that would neither clog up my Twitter account or fill my regular blog with tons of idle chatter.

That said, this is a true experiment. We’ll see if it effectively serves it’s purpose. Stay tuned for details starting Friday morning.

And, you can also follow me on Twitter @manskngcoffee or at the regular blog manseekingcoffee.com