I'm paying closer attention to the barista's competitions this year, mainly because the video coverage is just now climbing out of the basement of quality. So far it's been interesting, but early on, the common theme now seems to be a lot of baristas serving colder espresso and emphasizing that point.

Sieving espresso grounds. It's going to be the EK of 2014 (what's left of it)

Hate to be an a**, but I believe it's "Rimini," not Remini. Having been there a couple of years ago, I can highly recommend this out of the way european beach town. Extremely few Americans are there because nobody knows about it, but it's loaded with European vacationers.

To be a little helpful, here is a link to the streams. http://new.livestream.com/worldcoffee

I know the EK43 has more fines than some other espresso grinders, but better grind uniformity than most others. How does sifting affect the fine count and resulting flow? Does it not really sift out any fines, just out of spec grinds? If it does sift out a significant amount of fines, what does this do to the "fine" theory of espresso flow - does it stay in tact since people just grind even finer than the EK43 requires normally?

TomC wrote:So far it's been interesting, but early on, the common theme now seems to be a lot of baristas serving colder espresso and emphasizing that point.

Sieving espresso grounds. It's going to be the EK of 2014 (what's left of it)

That bulk grinders (namely the EK43) for espresso is a big new trend is more or less unsurprising. However, I don't believe that our current USBC champion, Laila Ghambari, used one (or sieved her grinds)-if I recall right, she used a K30 Twin. And she won that championship by a very significant margin.

What will be really interesting to me this year is to see if one of the competitors using an EK43 can win the WBC. As much as I love seeing these home barista type espresso preparation methods being featured prominently in barista championships, I am rooting for Laila.

Not as important, but I mentioned in another thread that it's interesting seeing fewer and fewer hipster looks, less handlebar mustaches, vests and skinny ties, and more focus on simple (but often custom made) aprons, to help hold towels at their hips better. It's nice to see more of a focus put on the coffee and prep, not so much on the person's flair making it.

The EK's grind is much finer than other grinders for a given dialed in beverage. The result is a sweeter and more focused flavor. The unfortunate many who taste with their eyes don't like what they see from the EK. I suspect the sieved versions are even more "slow start / fast finish".

endlesscycles wrote:The EK's grind is much finer than other grinders for a given dialed in beverage. The result is a sweeter and more focused flavor. The unfortunate many who taste with their eyes don't like what they see from the EK.

Yes, it might be sweeter but much less body and mouthfeel, less buttery.
IMHO a high price for a bit of more sweetness.
We will see how many baristas are using the EK 43 in Rimini and how they score.

That's interesting you say that; it's exactly why Kapu Chiu claims to sieve, which immediately seems counterintuitive. He claims to retain body with EK shots, the grind size needs to be extra fine, which overextracts the fines.

As a process engineer, I love the "grind at once" approach. Batch it.

Terranova wrote:We will see how many baristas are using the EK 43 in Rimini and how they score.

3/6 finalists using EK43s, and just one (?) conical in sight (Craig Simon's doserless Compak, if it's a conical-I can't tell), it seems. That said, the championship has gone to Hidenori Izaki of Japan, who used a Nuova Simonelli Mythos grinder. 3rd place went to Christos Loukakis, who used a pair of Anfim Super Caimanos. It'll be interesting to see what the scores were. In any case, Mazzer's previously-ubiquitous Robur has decidedly disappeared from top competitors' tables, which is an interesting development independent of the EK43 trend.

I haven't watched all the competitors' routines yet, but so far my favorite is Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood's fantastic exploration of the impact of water quality (mineral hardness, alkalinity, and Ca/Mg ratio) on coffee extraction and flavor. It has echoes of the Insanely Long Water FAQ, but there's a lot of new and different perspective as well; his integration into the competition format is truly impressive. I'm really looking forward to reading more from Colonna-Dashwood and Christopher Hendon on water quality and coffee.

Maybe I need to borrow a nebulizer from work and make some espresso vapor

But as to the equipment choices, I try not to focus on that quite as much, mainly because there's so much human bias in judging, there's countless reasons and influences in what makes a judge score something the way they do. Outside of the technical judging for proper technique and cleanliness, I think it's almost a crapshoot as to whether one certain type of grinder or another will really be a key reason why one competitor scores better than another.

Now, the easy counter argument to what I just wrote was evident just last year. Pete Licata won by a very very large point range ( I believe someone said it was like 30 points), with his conical grinder over his competitors EK43. But, does the score directly translate a heavy amount of influence particularly from the grinder? I'm not so sure. I think it could be a multitude of reasons. I've done competitive judging for BBQ, and participated as a home brewer (beer) and I know how much the final winner ends up being determined more by random chance and good fortune than hard numbers scoring.

I think it would be very interesting to include one more judge on these panels. Have them sit facing completely away from the "stage" so they're not influenced by any showmanship. Put some headphones on them with loud enough music that they're not hearing any of the dialogue, then just hand them each of the submissions and have them assessed for what they are, not the pomp and pizazz of how they were created.

TomC wrote:I think it would be very interesting to include one more judge on these panels. Have them sit facing completely away from the "stage" so they're not influenced by any showmanship. Put some headphones on them with loud enough music that they're not hearing any of the dialogue, then just hand them each of the submissions and have them assessed for what they are, not the pomp and pizazz of how they were created.

Cool idea. Another thing that could be added is a compulsory service where the coffee is held constant. This is done in the Brewers Cup (open service + compulsory service in the first round, I believe), and I've never heard a coherent reason why it wouldn't make sense for the barista competitions.