The championships are over, and I've had a little bit of time to face reality again (though sleeping in my own bed only for one night in over a week doesn't help there). Bad news first: I placed 14th. Which is not too bad considering the amount of training I've done.

The good news next: I placed 8th. Of 18. In the cuptasting competition. I'm pretty proud of that. Not familiar with this type of competition? It's actually quite simple: you're given eight sets of three cups, of which two contain the same coffee and the third a different one. You're given a cupping spoon (thanks IAC, the spoons were great!). Spot the odd and push the cup away. If you're lucky it has a red dot beneath. This year, I spotted 6 of the 8 sets right - the winner spotted 7, so I'm quite in the ballpark I believe! At the competition in 2006, I only did 3 cups right, though you can't really compare the numbers because the coffee of course is quite different through the years, this looks like quite an improvement to me.

Barista competition.

Jule Runge of the Coffee Store in Bielefeld placed second (and first in the latteart competition!), and Thomas Schiessl of freelance-barista.com won the competition. Congratulations for both and all the best for Copenhagen!

Walter of kaffeespezialitaet.at roasted the coffee for me, and he and I both put quite some work into finding the right coffees. He listened to my suggestions about how I'd like the roast to be (a little bit on the light side), and he took a great effort to get this coffee to me in time. My blend was two thirds of Costa Rica coop. Libano CoE and one third of Dominican Republic Montaña Verde, roasted just into the first pops of second crack, rested about a week - it had a very appealing fruity acidity kick to a balanced smooth round body type with some edges and odds in the cup but very satisfying (if pulled right), or just in-your-face acidity (if pulled wrong). Walter told me it's a risk, and in retrospective I believe he was right. Not quite the italian taste of espresso that this years jury seemed to have been so fond of. I do like this blend this way, because I think when taking it a little darker it really loses what makes it shine, it gets a little rounder but also quite a bit more boring for me.

The other coffee I used for my signature drink was a Yemen Matari Mokha, a blend of two roast degrees: ca. 75% taken into second crack and 25% taken into rolling second. I wrote about this coffee before and it's stunning, different from everything else alas somehow a real archetype of a coffee. It's earthy, spicey, heavy, thick, and has very cool notes of wood and toasted wood that I really can't describe any better (Jan tastes blueberrys in there. I whish I had his tastebuds!). The second part of my signature 'drink' was a bit of chocolate - a Domori Puertomar, which is a single-estate single-varietal chocolate from Venezuela (if I read the description right - I don't know nothing when it's not about coffee) that had some really crazy fruitiness going on. So first chocolate, then the Matari, should set some cool fireworks of taste in your mouth - certainly did in mine!

I think I really messed that one up. For the signature drink to really work, you must have the chocolate about a minute before the coffee. So I told the judges they should have a bite while I prepared the shots - and then I had to redo a couple of shots because I messed up dosing, and it appearantly took ages for my mind to make itself up wether or not I should repull and whatnot. So they had the chocolate, waited, waited, and waited, and around twenty gazillion hours later had the espressos. Damnit.

So, the most important thing I learned last weekend: training. If I want to compete ever again, I need to get myself the time and possibility of constant training, especially the months before the competition. Four evenings on a two group are not enough. I may have the passion, but I don't have a two group nor the other ressources needed for training!

The same goes for cuptasting: If I ever want to win that competition (and I will! There, I said it!), I have to become much faster. Seven minutes for 'only' six right won't get me into the finals, whereas five minutes would have. Feels good.

It's so good to pull shots just for my very own pleasure again. Thank you Walter, your Coffee is still awesome.

That's all for today but I expect to have a review online by the end of this week.

(this was Latte Art Champion and Barista Vice Champion Jule Runge preparing for the final round)

... but I'm prepared!

(well, nearly. I know there's some stuff still missing, but I'll have it all in Frankfurt, I promise!)

Finally! If Walter gives his ok and doesn't say I'm totally off with my idea, I have my blend. Yay for today! I'm not yet sure wether I disclose now or after the competition. We'll see. I like it. Really!

I thought I'd just include my entry for the home-latte-art-contest right on here, thanks to Jessica who got me to familiarise myself with this damn flash thingy. See yourself:

We'll see if I can pour a cappuccino like that on stage. I just hope I don't make a complete fool of myself!

For all who like stop motion animation: Jessica now has a blog where she talks about the production of her most recent movie. You're gonna love it! I do for sure :)

The competition is now three weeks ahead and I'm getting nervous. Last friday, David and I had a little training evening at Edzard's MuffinMann. He impressed me with his stunning and well-thought-of signature beverage. With a few small changes it'll be really great!

That evening also tought me that I'm too unprepared yet. No concept, only ideas floating around - at least I do have a working (though very risky) signature beverage! The next three weeks will be weeks of intense training (as intense as I can do at home).

I am very glad that Kaffeespezialität's Dr. Walter Charzewski is willing to roast the coffee for me. One of the two coffees I'll use is already set - if you know me, you'll have no real difficulties to guess what's it. For the other, I'll expect a pack of samples within a few days for me to experiment with - I have a general idea, but not made up my mind yet.

If you don't know where to order your next batch from, you really should try Walter's coffee. If you know already, heck, do so regardless ;), as he is one of the very few roasters I know that stock real quality coffee, and from what I taste in the cup he does put real effort and care into getting the best out of the bean.

Matari again

I talked about the Yemen Matari before. Three days ago, did another batch - after talking to Walter about my homeroasting methods - and it turns out to be much much better than on my last try. I still can taste it after finishing the cup half an hour ago, and it sit's really nice there on the back of my tongue. I get very nice wooden notes from it, though I do like the roasted wood that I got from Walter's roast more. My homeroast is still not as good as Walter's (of course!), but the race is getting closer (as in - only 100 miles behind, not 1000). Stunning coffee.

Am I a pro barista?

On sunday, I did my first video shooting and cutting (well Jessica shoot, I cut) - see here (or here for the bigger flash variant). This was for a german 'home-latte-art-contest', where you can win a trip to Costa Rica. It's not for people working in gastronomy, but home users, so called amateurs (whom I believe most of are better at producing good coffee than many so-called pros are - but that's an entirely different thing). So here's the question:

What am I?

I didn't work in gastronomy since August '07, and my work in the Café was a side job for nearly two years. Can I call myself a Pro Barista only because of having had a side job in a Café? Or because I competed last year in the german Baristachampionships and placed 11th?

Can I call myself an Amateur Barista because I read TMC all day long, have nifty (though not pricey!) equipment at home, roast for my pleasure and love what I'm doing at home? All I do coffee-wise happens in my kitchen currently, as you can see on the video. And it happens mostly for my own pleasure. And I pay retail prices, not bulk.

It'll be interesting to see what comes out of this home-latte-art-contest. Currently, I'm the only entrant. I hope that changes, though, but I do of course also hope I won't be disqualified and win the journey. I mean - hey come on - a trip to Costa Rica! :)

I've been digging more into homeroasting the past few weeks and am amazed that I constantly learn new things, new tastes and surprising facts. For example the El Salvador Finca La Fany: I've had it quite a while ago when I was still using the old Gaggia Coffee and MDF grinder, and I was totally unable to pour a shot from it that was at least drinkable. Medium dark roasted back then, all I got was citric acid on my tongue (that's how it felt like). Based on the taste descriptions, I ordered some again and roasted it myself (into 2nd crack, with heavy ventilating to get the smoke off the beans, roast time around 19 minutes (a tad too long I believe)). And this proved to be another of these wow-coffees on my LaCimbali: Very tasty, creamy with a great mouthfeel, a little citrus (I tried it a bit too early after the roast) and very sweet. Yummy. A very welcome change to the Yemen Matari I've had very much of - the Matari is such a heavy coffee that you get tired of it very soon (at least for the late-afternoon drinks).

On a completely unrelated note, I love this picture my dad took on what would have been the most beautiful day of the year in decembre 2007:

I've also got a bag of my last years competition blend and I must say I still quite like it (when it's a few weeks old that is - too fresh, as it was during competition, it's way tough stuff, too old it's just boring). Not the kind of coffee I'd drink every day (it's a tad bit tough and unbalanced for that), though in milk drink it shines for me.

Before christmas I had the wonderful opportunity to roast a batch of Costa Rica CoE Libano (from Walter) on a Probat sample roaster - Thanks Mario! - but I wasn't very satisfied with the results in the cup. Probably it roasted too long (there seems to be a pattern here with me), although just into 2nd crack (another pattern?). I put the rest of the batch in the grinder and lucky as I am hit the grind spot-on for a very very very lovely espresso. I'd love to experiment more with this bean, there seems to be a lot of potential for great coffee and espresso, though I fear with my home-roasting device all I can experiment is a trial-and-error kind of thing - I can't really speak of reproduceability right now. Maybe that will change in the future - who knows? ;)

If you've got this far - thanks for reading! I'd love to know who actually reads my blog. Please, leave a comment!

Edzard the MuffinMann called for Hannover's first Barista Battle on the 1st of decembre, and even though I'm not really local to Hannover I couldn't stand back from having a nice day there and meeting a bunch of nice people!

I was mighty impressed with Edzard's small café. He is a master confectioner, and his muffin range is phenomenal. Their taste is too. And they are so big that you can't eat more than one, if one at all, while at the same time you just have to try them all!

As for the coffee, they use the LaMarzocco single basket which I found quite interesting (I thought that wouldn't work in a commercial environment), and the shot I had was definitly one of the best pulls I had in a café as of yet. The coffee I had was a blend I forgot the name of, but it was quite good, though a little boring (I guess having sporadic access to Cup of Excellence coffees and other wonderful single estate/origins is leaving it's marks on my taste preferences...).

We had plenty of time to chat and hang around before the actual competition started and it was really good to put faces to some names and talk about coffee and passion and all that. It's good to know there are passionate people out there!

Second photo on the right is the jury.

The competition was straightforward: do four cappuccinos, do them with good latte art and work efficiently. Plus, Edzard wanted to find out whose of his baristas David or Martin will enter the next german barista championship, so this was added pressure on both of them. There were two rounds of competition: first round open for everybody, second round only for the two competing MuffinMann baristas. I won the first round and couldn't really believe the scores, as you can see I was quite puzzled when they announced them.

Plus three 10's for clean & efficient working. Wow. Guess where I learnt that? Right.

The second and third round were most intense: both David and Martin were really good at their latte art, and both scored the same. In the end they needed a third round where the quest was a double rosetta, which David finally won. Sure you can question whether latte art is a measure for competition (it's not), but it was fun and the people there (not only the contestants, the shop was rammed full!) had got some glimpse into the coffee world, and for this latte art is nearly as good as a well prepared shot or cappu. Congratulations to David and hopefully we'll meet in Frankfurt!

Well, I for one had a great day, and I believe the others had too. So thanks a lot Edzard! I look forward to the second Hannoveraner Barista Battle next year :)

The bag of Matari was just finished too fast (as always). Everybody liked it, it's a stunning coffee, especially if it's roasted just so well. So there I went roasting up a batch on my own: I hadn't done much roasting in the last weeks (mainly because I had no greens left) so this was my first batch in quite a while, and I was a bit ubercautios. The roast went nicely (as always :)), possibly a bit slow with first crack starting at 16'40 and second around 19'33. I panicked a little as I didn't want to ruin the roast so I stopped it at 19'55. Quite a bit lighter than I'd imagined and than Walter did it.

The taste was ok, though: the Matari was still there, the roasted wood turned a bit down to normal wood, acidity was higher (a little unpleasant; but brewing hotter helped a bit) and generally the taste was muted compared to the real thing (pictured here; the colors are way off but you can see the spots of oil on the bean surface). One advantage the lighter roast had, though: the coffee was now drinkable as normal brewed coffee.

Lesson learned: I need to do more roasts. And I need a proper roaster, but that's a completely different thing ... hooray that I now have a stash of 7kg in the kitchen and a batch of Yirgacheffe roasted that looks just like I wanted it to look!