But then again, Jim Schulman lives in Chicago, and I am a sucker for irrational extreme excursions, so there may be more to Chicago in February than 15 below. Jim was gracious to offer me his guest room for the weekend, and 10 minutes later I was all booked to go.
I arrived on Thursday afternoon at Intelligentsia's roasting facility, where the judges' workshop took place. I was there to say hello to familiar faces from past competitions and to tune in with the scoring calibration for this one. It was a pleasantly intimate workshop, with a frontal lecture in the morning covering the rules and scoring criteria, followed by mock competition sessions in the afternoon. That evening we all got together at Club Lucky for the Judge's Appreciation Dinner and filled up three large tables in their private room. A good hearty family style Italian dinner set us all straight for the 18 espresso drinks that followed the next day.
The competition was held in Navy Piers, an amusement & entertainment strip along the shore of lake Michigan. It coincided with Coffee Fest, a coffee trade show similar in scope to the SCAA annual convention, with a large exhibit floor packed with everything coffee. An area on the trade show floor was reserved for the competition, with a theatre style seating and two barista workstations on stage.
Jim and I were assigned to the same flight consisting of six baristas total. This year, the judging schedule has been changed somewhat to allow for a better flow of the competition. Judges were divided into two teams, and alternated flights. This way while team 1 deliberated their scores for competitor # 1, team two was ready to work with competitor # 2. In other words, there wasn't a 10 minutes pause between competitors, they all went on one after the other. That gave the entire competition a tighter flow.
Friday's round was well attended with the crowd cheering their favorites after the completion of every round of drinks. (4 straight shots, 4 cappas, 4 signature drinks). Judging the regionals is a very uneven experience. You often get competitors that are just starting out as baristas and have not matured yet to deliver a notable performance. You can go through a whole flight, eighteen drinks, and maybe have one good shot. The 2006 SERBC was one of those. Not only was it mostly forgettable, but it was utterly boring since 70% of the competitors were using the same coffee. As we went on stage for our first flight I told Jim that I hope the cat stays in the bag for the entire competition. Being on Intelligentsia's home turf, I was afraid we would be served with Black Cat until we go meow.
Day one and two passed by quickly with 24 competitors from six different states participating. The Cat indeed was kept in the bag, and the variety of coffees served in the competition was the largest I've ever seen in a regional. In between judging gigs, we visited the exhibit hall and sampled some coffees we normally do not get. Nick Cho presided as Master of Ceremonies and gave a flowing and upbeat performance that kept with the fast pace of the show this year.
The final round was held on Sunday to a full house of spectators. Matt Riddle won it again this year, followed by Amber Sather of Intelligentsia in 2nd place and Steve Fritzen of Coffee Hound in third.
Every competition appears to have its own trends. Areas where baristas can improve on their performance, and some where they excel. Here are this year's trends:
Where did I put my acidity?
The lack of acidity in most of the shots served in the competition was puzzling. Acidity carries with it a lot of the flavors in coffee, and when it is not there, the coffee is often flat. We got a lot of sweet coffee, some sweet with an ashy kick, but no acidity to balance it off. With so many fantastic acidic coffees out there to choose from, many of which can be pulled as single origins, the choice of coffee, roast profile, and dosing was overly safe. I think that there is a great fear that acidity will be interpreted by judges as sourness. If this is the case, it is totally misguided. A more likely candidate for this common thread is the fact that it takes better skills to pull a balanced shot with slightly acidic coffees. None of the straight shots I got would have made it to the USBC finals, let alone the WBC.
The Cappa Wannabe
There is a bias built into the competition setup against cappuccinos. As we all know, a cappa is a drink of thirds. Third coffee, third milk, third foam. However, in the competition they are served with only 1 oz of coffee - half the volume of coffee they should have. The reason is time, they are trying to finish their routine in 15 minutes. But even if they didn't, say a barista wants to pull a double into each cup, the technical judging score sheet does no account for it. There is no place for two more shots. The result is pale cappuccinos that are understandably much milkier than the ones they serve in their stores. It takes only 1.5 minutes to pull two more shots, and I'd like to see the barista that will send notice to the USBC board advising them that he will be pulling 4 separate doubles for his cappa. I think they will be pleased to accept the challenge and change the score sheet to accommodate for it. Once one barista did it, it will slowly become the norm, and we will see for the first time cappas rated as 5 (excellent). At the current conditions cappas in competitions taste more like lattes, and it is very hard to give a latte dressed up as a cappa any score higher than a three.
Greetings from Martha
At the beginning of each performance the barista sets the judges table. It usually involves covering it with a table cloth, napkins, water & sugar, and a centerpiece. There is a good room for improvement there. I'm sure some of the baristas were puzzled when they read my comments on the score sheet regarding their setup. "pitcher out of balance" was a favorite laugh among my peers, but I intentionally nit picked on every aspect of table setup. If you want to get extra points on presentation, think about a three star restaurant, or a high end Japanese restaurant. Watch a little more Martha Stuart.
Amber Sather of Intelligentsia, 2nd Place Winner
Kristin Marks of Metropolis
Chris Kornman of Intelligentsia
Matt Riddle of Intelligentsia, 2007 GLRBC Winner
