2014 World Barista Champs

admin

Hi guys, here's where things start to get down to the business-end of things: list of semi-finalists [& country representing] at WBC semifinals in Rimini:

1.  Christos Loukakis, TAF, Greece
2.  Hidenori Izaki, Maruyama Coffee Co., Japan
3.  Coen Van Sprang, Bocca Coffee Roasters, The Netherlands
4.  Pete Williams, 3FE, Ireland
5.  Erna Tosberg, Roestbar, Germany
6.  Kapo Chiu, The Cupping Room, Hong Kong
7.  Tse-Lin (Berg) Wu, Simple Kaffa, Taiwan @simplekaffa
8.  Laila Ghambari, Cherry Street Coffee House, United States
9.  Craig Simon, Think Tank Coffee, Australia
10. William Hernandez, Viva Espresso, El Salvador
11. Ben Put, Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters, Canada
12. Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, Colonna & Small

admin

ok so semi-finals took place in Rimini, Italy last night - the six finalists have been announced [their home cafe name in brackets]: William Hernandez  El Salvador  [Viva Espresso] Kapo Chiu     Hong Kong       [The Cupping Room] Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood  United Kingdom   [Colonna & Smalls] Hidenori Izaki   Japan   [Maruyama Coffee Co.] Chris Loukakis   Greece   [TAF] Craig Simon   Australia   [Think Tank Coffee] congrats to all these guys - they've had a lot of rounds to get through to where they are now! Finals to be held on Thursday, 12 June at World of Coffee, and the 2014 World Barista Champion is announced the same day at 15:30pm [European time].

galumay

If people are not aware you can watch the videos of the individual performances here, http://new.livestream.com/worldcoffee/events/3076851 Just scroll down and you will see the individual videos. Have seen any game changers in the way Matt Perger's entry was last year. I personally find a lot of it very wanky and contrived. I see a lot of under roasted coffee that is then over dosed to try to compensate, and then 'fiddled' with to try to recover the natural sweetness that has been lost! There is far too much leading of the judges allowed, telling them all the flavours they will detect, which rather makes it meaningless to call it judging. Its hard not to believe the performance is rated more than the actual contents of the cups. Still I sit and watch all the videos each year! Its great theatre, I mumble and mutter and very occasionally become inspired! I would actually love to see the competition run as a blind tasting judging, hear the judges comments and then the pre-recorded 'story' from the barista. I reckon there would be a lot less waffling.

admin

very much agree with Galumay's comments (above); from my point-of-view the nature of the competition has changed a lot (in favour of 'performance/theatre') rather than coffee excellence at least for the WBC part of the comp, since Paul Bassett won way back in 2003, when it really was about quality of the shot. For the record, here are the official results [from World Coffee Events]: World Barista Championship Champion: Hidenori Izaki, Japan 2nd: Kapo Chiu, Hong Kong 3rd: Christos Loukakis, Greece 4th: Craig Simon, Australia 5th: Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, United Kingdom 6th: William Hernandez, El Salvador World Brewers Cup Champion: Stefanos Domatiotis, Greece 2nd: Rubens Gardelli, Italy 3rd: Asli Yaman, Turkey 4th: Odd-Steinar T