SCAA/USBC: really, chicago is an island
April 12, 2006 – 1:07 ambitter dregs:
* how does one make off with “bags” of coffee? all i got was a vac-packed two-pound brick of mass-produced italian poo from the isomac booth-lackey who was trying to atone for his total lack of functional english.
* heard from several people: chris coffee will soon venture into roasting. wonder if he’ll alternate blends as prolifically as he’s switched the $1,500-range e61 prosumer machines. not that there’s anything wrong with that!
* mark prince thinks finalist jon lewis is better suited to world barista competition. i see his point — the drink building and verbal delivery was extremely high-concept, very developed. he made other presentations look far more nuts-and-bolts by comparison. it was a little overwrought for this cynic, but a scintillating show nonetheless. (video of jon’s sigs just added below.)
* a blogger and usbc attendee i’d never heard from before offers an interesting take in the comments here — that some east coast competitors are still trying to figure out what the usbc judges are looking for. i had been marvelling that none of this year’s finalists hailed from seattle (though billy wilson is close enough), but came from places as obscure as nebraska and idaho. (what? no potato sigs?) but i wonder what other east-coast shop owners would think about this opinion. the anticipated murky coffee baristi did well enough at the southeast regionals, but i heard little after that.
clearly, competitors from chicago should be handicapped. maybe force them to pull singles. use straight malabar. tamp star anise seeds in the portafilter for the cappuccino round. use the usbc’s actual sponsor equipment. i dunno…
I was actually speaking for myself and several others, but not the ENTIRE east coast. As much as we try to educate people here in Pittsburgh by giving them better coffee (and we use Intelly ourselves), we’re not going to be condescending toward anyone’s tastes. It’s just bad business in this region.
Our best horse took 4th in the MARBC in Feb. She did the macchiato fico, which was an incredibly simple but delicious (and unusual) drink that we are now serving here. I think you made the comment about Billy’s sig being the only one that could practicably be served as part of a standard espresso menu (IMO, Ellie’s could too, just not with the grape press). And isn’t that what it should be about? Why do we want to have these Todd English presentations when simplicity tastes so damned good?
I just keep going back to that old quote from Robert Mondavi who, when asked what his favorite wine was, responded “Whatever is in front of me.” Certainly it’s not quite the same for coffee since a lot of things can go wrong post-harvest, but still… sometimes the reverence seems over the top.
agreed about the “bad business” part — i was stunned to hear nick cho say during a lull in the competition that there is currrently no northeast regional barista competition. don’t know how i didn’t know that.
i agree on ellie’s sig — it’s doable, and very atractive. my point about billy’s drink was more that it blew the doors off creatively — it was an entirely new concept, and a believable one, one you could imagine being served in a very high-end place but that you had never even heard of before. you watched its prep and simply wanted it to taste fabulous without knowing how, exactly, it would taste.
it was also highly risky. it’s not that other drinks aren’t doable in a cafe setting or (obviously) didn’t score well taste-wise, but billy was producing a fascinating new experience where others relied more on the typical layering of espresso with friendly (and yummy) ingredients. that’s what i meant.
language of the post has been tweaked so that you aren’t speaking for the entire east coast.
you still make an interesting point, though.
Got it on Billy. Still, I can see serving that creation in our shop as opposed to anything that comes in a bucket of dry ice.
Btw, on your sponsor’s equipment… I lost track of how many didn’t use the Compak grinders, but I’m pretty certain it was more than just the Intelly folks. Our own entrant (Belle) wasn’t happy with the Compak and was offered Ellie’s grinder to use shortly before the prelims, but decided to use the Compak it since that’s what she practiced on. Risky play by SCAA going with an “off-brand” as sponsor since few have used it.
We’ll have to look for you next time and make a proper introduction… we’ll prolly be in Vegas for their CoffeeFest.
yeah. it was pretty obvious no one wanted to use the compaks. even more startling was the krus machine riddle had to pose with as champeen.