World Barista Championships

SC

The biggest question when you choose to compete is obviously what coffee will you use? In the Australian Barista Championship in January I was very fortunate that my friend Paul Geshos from Mecca was generous enough to sell me some Ethiopian Yergacheffe Aricha Selection 16. This coffee was one of the main reasons why I chose to compete again I was having a Siphon coffee made with the Aricha at Mecca and I said to myself "I wish coffees like this were around when I was competing!" and then I said to myself "well?" I used this coffee for my espresso with a small component of a Costa Rican coffee from a farm called Las Lajas which I bought from Fleur at Melbourne Coffee Merchants and I can confidently say that when I served this coffee at the Australians Barista Championship it was a very proud moment for me because for the first time when competing I truly believed that what I was serving was a great coffee. For my cappuccino I used the same Costa Rican and a Sumatran coffee from a region called Sidikalang that I visited later on after the ABC. For the worlds I couldn't use these coffees because they had run out, so I needed something new, this was very hard because finding something as good as the Aricha or the Baloya was proving to be a real challenge and if you have ever tasted the Aricha or baloya roasted and poured well you will know what I mean. But after cupping and buying numerous coffees from Mark Dundan at Seven Seeds and Fleur from MCM we finally settled on a Colombian Coffee called Matituy and an auction lot Kenyan that we bought through Fleur at Melbourne Coffee merchants. Incidentally when I say 'we' I am talking about Paul Geshos, myself and the team at Belaroma, Belaroma is obvious because I work there but Paul's generosity in helping me in my preparation was priceless and I will be forever grateful for his help cupping, choosing and roasting the coffees. You see at Belaroma at the time we only had a 120 kg roaster and when preparing for a barista comp you need a small 3 - 12 kg roaster and Paul has a 12 kg Probat and without his knowledge and pallet I simply would not have made the finals at the WBC. More soon Scottie

SC

It was a long journey from October 2009 through to London in June 2010. Many long days, roasting and frustrating cupping sessions, frustrating espresso's which simply were not up to scratch, hundreds of run throughs of my presentation, finicky hours experimenting with the espresso the Cappuccino and the signature beverage, days in the garage building contraptions for the signature beverage and serving trays etc etc. And the help of many awesome people, I would not have even made the semi finals if not for Emily Oak, Saxon Wright, Andy Simpkin, Tim Jones, Simon James, Paul Geshos, Phil Mknight, Gwilym Davies, Tim Wendelboe, Klaus Thomson and many others. In London the 3 days of competition and the week before hand getting over jet lag, looking for milk, tasting my coffee was one of the hardest fortnights of my life for numerous reasons. But mainly because on the Saturday before the worlds I fell very sick and ended up vommitting that night all night and I was nautious and weak for the next few days, the greatest challenge here was trying to practice and taste while being sick and weak, all I wanted to do was go to bed. I did not have the drive or desire to do anything but go to bed but Simon James was there and he drove me to keep working. In the end we sorted our milk and it wasn't until the night before my heat that we were finally happy with the coffee. Now that I new the Kenyan Mbee was on I could get a good nights sleep before my heat.

SC

Those of you who were able to watch my performance in the heats will testify that I was a bit off my game, this shows on the results where I was down the ladder in the heats compared to the finals. Thankfully it was enough to get me through to the finals, I think Phil MKnights text message just after my heat said it all "Mate won't blow smoke up your ass cause I've seen you do better, but it was still very solid. we'll see you in the semi finals tomorrow!" After my heat and waiting for the announcement was as nerve racking as always, and walking out in front of the crowd with all those Aussies in the crowd made the whole experience so much more exciting and having close family and friends there to be a part of it is also priceless. Over the next 2 days the roller coaster ride of competing in the heats, waiting for the announcement, then competing in the semi finals then waiting for the announcement again. And polishing all the equipment after the semis while we wait even though you don't know if you got through. You need to do this because we only had 2 hours in between the semi finals and the finals to get ready for the finals. And then waiting for the final announcement after competing in the finals. All this was incredibly exciting and quite an adrenalin rush and a great honour to represent Australia. When it came to finally announcing the 6 positions  I was very proud to make the top 3 and it is a great compliment to be in the company of the other baristas in the top 6. So this is something I am very proud of, and off course there is the dissapointment of just missing out on the top spot and thinking about what I could have done differently to be there. That said I tasted Mike Philips coffee the day after the finals and I have to say that it was truely off the chart and Mike is a great guy and a worthy ambassador for specialty coffee. Scottie

admin

Hey Scottie - thanks for taking the time to write this, and give us some idea of what it's actually like to prepare and compete in a WBC! cheers A PS Scottie's got a great blog - Good baristas are mad click on: http://www.scottiecallaghan.blogspot.com/

admin

HI guys - just seen a promo for Ch 7's Sunrise - Scotty will be 'doing his thing' tomorrow morning! A

DoubleRistretto

Hi there - missed the show but did a search on the Ch 7 website for this and couldn't find anything... did anyone actually see this? dR

samkonstas

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