Well I have just spent a month traveling around the world visiting some of the leading coffee roasters in the world and some of the best Barista’s including five of the eight previous World Barista Champions….

7-8^th October

Portland, Oregan

The home of Stumptown coffee, I visited several of their stores, and enjoyed one of the best espresso I have ever been served. I also visited both roasting warehouses and had the opportunity to participate in a cupping session at The Stumptown Annex which is purpose built to provide free cupping sessions 3 times a day to the general public, now that’s giving power to the people! I also dropped by Albina Press which is owned by Billy Wilson, one of America’s most regarded barista’s. I also squeezed in a visit to the American Barista Academy, that does a lot of barista and general café training.

9-10^th October

Seattle, Washington

Craig from Zoka coffee was nice enough to act as a tour guide and show me around Seattle. Zoka was  doing a great job, it was 3pm and the store was still really busy. We toured around having coffee at the new Stumptown stores that had just opened, drove past where the Starbucks sensation started and then ended up at Vivace for espresso. This was interesting; a skilled barista grinding to order combined with a Synesso I expected a lot but was served something very short that was bubbling and splitting, it was very salty and sharp. All was saved with several beers at a local microbrewery, there are as many micro breweries as there are local roasters in Seattle!

11^th October

Chicago, Illinois

I spent the day at Intelligentsia Coffee with Matt Riddle USBC 2006, Geoff Watts Green Bean Buyer for Intel and Deaton Pigot; an Australian that is training to be head roaster of Intelligentsia’s new roastery in Los Angles. I was given a tour, impressive set up with two 90kg and one 22kg vintage Gothot roasters in action!! But the real inspiration for me was the amount of direct trade coffee they are purchasing from farms around the world. Geoff spends 8 months of the year traveling the world, visiting farms where he helps to educate, reinvest and improve on the quality of product being delivered back to Intelligentsia in Chicago. I also got a quick tour of their retail operations in downtown Chicago, they were extremely busy espresso bars that were producing some great quality product.

12^th October

Vancouver, British Columbia

The home of Coffeegeek, well of Mark Prince anyway founder and head geek! Mark was kind enough to show me around Vancouver, a beautiful city with some great espresso. Mark also managed to show me a great restaurant and a couple of bars as well!, several beers later and plenty of coffee talk I nearly missed my plane. I did however manage to sneak in a visit to the new 49^th Parallel café that Vince and Sammy Piccolo have recently opened. Vince was working the new 3 group La Marzocco Mistral and I jumped on for a play a bit of go, great set up, even better coffee.

13^th-15^th October

Copenhagen, Denmark

The Home of four World Barista Champions, and the host for the World Barista Championship next Year. I caught up with Klaus Thomsen WBC 2006 and part owner of the new coffee collective, he is a fantastic ambassador and a true inspiration for what specialty coffee is all about. I had some great espresso with him and had the opportunity to focus in on some dosing and tamping styles that differ between the countries. While in Copenhagen I went past Café Europa and unbelievably sitting at the bar was Troels Poulsen 2005 WBC, small world! I introduced myself, he looked at me a little funny and then said “I know who you are, but why are you on this side of the world!” an unexpected meeting but he showed me around Kontra coffee and the Copenhagen Barista Academy. This is a fantastic city and should hold a great party at the WBC in 2008.

16^th-19^th October

London, United Kingdom

Home of the 2007 World Barista Champion, James Hoffman. I was really looking forward to this, two days training with James and his partner Annette who just happens to be the 2007 World Cupping Champion. With a 2 group la Marzocco on hand, several kilos of coffee, various grinders, tampers and other accessories we set about writing what ended up being a notebook full of ideas and possibilities for 2008. Extracting espresso after espresso, breaking down every little step in a way I had never done before. Looking at previous score sheets, DVD’s and reviewing new score sheets for next year, I ended leaving after 2 days exhausted, excited and anxious about putting everything I had learnt into practice and not disappointing one of the best barista’s in the world.

20^th-23^rd October

Milan, Italy

The 2007 Host show is the largest hospitality show in the world, held every 2 years in Milan. An exhibition that spans several kilometers of exhibition space, including a whole pavilion exclusively for gelati freezers! But we were here for the coffee and they had an exhibition the size of something I had not seen before. Their was roasting equipment that ranged from the 5kilo shop roaster to the 650kilo commercial roaster. Espresso machine manufacturers, that were all revealing new machines and innovative ideas for the future. Some highlights were la Marzocco who have brought back the lever operated group that were on their GS series in the 1960-70’s, they also celebrated their 80^th Birthday and threw a fantastic cocktail party. Working the la Marzocco stand was 2002 WBC Fritz Storm, he pulled some shots and we spoke about his come from behind win at the WBC in 2002. For those who don’t know he drew for a position in the 2002 final with Paul Basset and on a count back scraped into the final, before blowing the field away to be the 2002 World Champion. Paul Basset 2003 WBC was also in Milan pulling some great shots on the new Café Series EM6910, the new scace device had this machine running as stable as most commercial machines. I also got to catch up with the manufacturer of my home espresso machine and we put some new ideas into production for the up coming model, stay tuned! At times I actually felt like I could have been in Australia there were that many Australians at the show, if you get the chance make the trip to host in 2009.

24^th October

On the way home, in time for the Golden Bean in Port Macquarrie. Although this was a whirlwind tour of the world espresso scene, it helped to open my eyes to what we all can achieve within the speciality coffee industry, and how every little thing we improve or focus on is making espresso coffee a better product and a more enjoyable cup for every customer around the world.

The inaugural Trans Tasman competition saw Australia win convincingly. The competition was a team event where a team of three barista’s from Australia competed against a team from New Zealand to produce 10 piccolo latte’s, 10 standard latte’s and 10 designer latte’s that had to incorporate the two major sponsors ingredients (Swiss water Decaf and Da Vinci Syrups.) The teams were judged on taste and art and were given bonus points for finishing under the allocated 10 minutes. The two teams for Australia were;

Team One
David Makin, Con Haralambopoulos and Justin Metcalf

Team Two
Hazel De la Royes, Genaro Benmayor and Natalie Risorto

The first round was held at the Café Biz Conference held at the Sydney overseas passenger terminal and saw Team One beat New Zealand with both scores well below the two teams that followed unfortunately Australia’s Team two was beaten by the smallest of margins.

So heading to Auckland for the second and final round the scores were 1 all.

Auckland was fantastic, it was great to get around and see some of the roasters and cafés we have heard a lot about. A highlight would be the cocktail party at Altura (thanks boys), Ben Boyle’s new café “Ben” and visiting Coffee Lab’s roastery.

The competition was at another level this time with everyone going away and really working out how to maximize points. This time Team Two for Australia went first Hazel, Genaro and Natalie unfortunately were unlucky to be beaten again by the New Zealanders by the smallest of margins. So with the score at 2 to 1 for New Zealand it fell to Justin, Con & I to level the scores and force a decider. We pushed through the 10 piccolo’s & 10 lattes quite quickly and with Con on the milk pouring there were plenty of single, double and triple rossetta’s! We got to the designer lattes and unfortunately had two get knocked over on the presentation table, after redoing and calling time we were told we were still short 2 coffees?? We quickly pushed another two out and called time again. A nervous wait and the scores showed that we had managed to scrape in for the win.

So all tied up at 2 all a decider was organized. We did not have enough signature drink ingredients left so lucky Hazel came to the rescue with a Chinotto based signature drink. Justin, Con & I were feeling good after having just competed and managed to push out the 30 drinks in a very quick time with some latte art from Con that had the crowd and even me shaking our heads.

In the end a decisive win for Australia.