I had a blast getting to know and hanging out with the awesome Francesco Sanapo when I was in Russia a few months ago for the Soyuz Coffee Roasting event in Red Square. And when I ran into him again in Milan a few weeks later during the HOST show, it was an awesome reunion. So needless to say, I was super excited when Francesco asked me to guest star on his weekly video program, “Sunday in my home, a good coffee in my cup.” He was recording it in advance of the Italian Barista Championship, which took place this past weekend. He showed it to the audience just before the announcement of the winner! And now you can see it online. Be sure to follow Francesco’s weekly program — he always includes awesome coffee and great information.
Only a week until the Northwest Regional Barista Competition, and then we’re off and running through this year’s six regionals up to the United States Barista Championship, held this year, right here in Portland, Oregon at the SCAA event in April.
This year’s Northwest Regional will be held in Tacoma, Washington at the Tacoma Convention Center. Hopefully the snow and ice misers are getting all their winter fury out of the way right now (most of Western Washington is under a blanket of snow and ice today – I just read that our friends at Espresso Parts are out of power today as are some 120,000 people in Washington.)
The regional will run from Friday, Jan. 27 through Sunday, Jan. 29. Besides the barista competition, there will also be the regional round of the US Brewers Cup. Dillanos Coffee Roasters are the host for this year’s event. The Northwest Region includes the states of Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
You can find out more about the regional at the SCAA’s website.
Also even sooner than the Northwest Regional, this weekend, as 2011 Italian champion Francesco Sanapo has just reminded us, is the finals of the Italian National Barista Championship. The winner there will have their ticket punched to the World Barista Championship in Vienna, Austria in June.
Our good friend, Italian Barista Champ Francesco Sanapo, has a really cool series of videos called “Sunday in My Home, A Good Coffee in My Cup” (you can see them HERE). Recently, Francesco interviewed World Barista Champion Alejandro Mendez of El Salvador, on the video program. It’s awesome! Check it out…
We’re so excited about Barista Nation San Francisco, which takes place the day after tomorrow! This is going to be the biggest and best Barista Nation yet, with 150 attendees, a host of amazing lecturers speaking on the theme of cafe architecture, and incredible events and activities. Check it out:
Very special thanks to host sponsor, David Rio, whose company headquarters will host the event. Loads of goodies await attendees: gift bags, prizes, a fantastic breakfast spread, lunch and dinner! Barista Nation is a simply fantastic event, and Barista Magazine is so super proud to be a sponsor!
Greek barista champion, Stefanos Domatiotis, teaches a class on the importance of skilled baristas in top tier cafés at Out of the Box, Athens.
2012 is well underway, and we’re hard at work on our next issue of Barista Magazine, February/March. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention something first from the previous year. (Special shout out to my mother-in-law for reminding me to post something about it.)
In mid-December, I had the great privilege to travel to Athens, Greece, to give a presentation at the first-ever La Marzocco Out of the Box event in that country. Due to the hectic travel schedule and rush of the Holidays, I wasn’t able to put anything up on the blog about the event, but I will say it was fantastic to visit Athens, and it was an illuminating experience. I’ll have a full Field Report about it in the Feb/March issue, and we’ll get some pics up on Facebook soon!
Thanks again to my gracious hosts at TAF Coffee!
The tour guide at the Acropolis is very friendly and helpful unless you're a mouse.
Hey hi ho! Welcome to 2012, which we at Barista Magazine can promise is going to be chock full of awesomeness of the coffee variety! One of the big reasons I’m confident in saying that is that I’ve been in a zillion conversations already about how we can make sure that the big Specialty Coffee Association of America show—which will be held right here in Portlandia, Oregon, USA, April 19-22—the most fun time possible for all our far-flung friends who will be converging on this great city.
Barista Magazine is set to co-host not one but TWO of what will surely be the best parties of the whole conference. Stay tuned for details about that one.
I sure miss that show, 'Party Down...' We will channel its awesome-nity during the SCAA for sure.
Also, I’m super stoked about a class that I will be teaching along with the amazing Liam Kenna, who manages the Stumptown Annex. The class—”Creating Sales in Front of the Bar”—will go like this: “For so many cafes, the sale begins and ends at the register, but there is much more opportunity for sales on the other side of the bar. Learn how you can create sales by getting your barista out from behind the bar and engaging the customer through in-store cuppings, home brewing demos, bean sales, and more.” (SCAA description)
This is Liam:
That's Liam on the right, when he was playing in the legendary Portland band, the Snuggle Ups.
So you know you’re gonna have a good time with us.
Anyway, since the SCAA show in Portland is still a few months away, how’s about this for something to get excited about:
I’ve talked on and on and on about how awesome I think Barista Nation is. So see for yourself and sign up for the event held in San Francisco on January 14!
I hope to see you there! For more information or to register, email Anastasia Chovan at baristanation@gmail.com.
2011 is winding down, so we’ve taken a look through our blogroll to see who’s been naughty and nice. Well, not that so much, but rather active or not. Blogs, for the kids out there, are of course an ancient communication media dating back to the early ages of the 21st Century.
Nowadays, in many cases, blogs have been supplanted by newer social media like Facebook and Twitter. (Hey check out our Facebook page and Twitter feed here!) That doesn’t mean, however, that blogs have gone away. Why look, you’re reading a blog right now! And sometimes it just takes more than 140 characters to say or share what’s on your mind.
So we’ve culled the inactive blogs from our blogroll, but hey, we’ve added a bunch too. From across the US to Norway, Ireland, Korea, and Peru, we’ve added blogs from wherever people are talking (or writing) about coffee. So if you’ve got a minute or an hour scroll through our blogroll and click on some links, check out what’s going on around the world, and see what’s new out there.
The Barista Guild of America (BGA) has hardly taken a breather since the success that was Camp Pull-A-Shot, the BGA’s retreat that had its second annual event in October in Santa Barbara, California. As a matter of fact, their retreat for professional baristas—which combines a heavy dose of education with a lot of fun and team building activities—has been successful to the point that they find themselves in need of a second retreat per year, this one to take place sometime between May and August, on the East Coast.
The theme and structure will be the same: a low-key environment in which baristas can let their hair down, get to know one another, have plenty of time with instructors on espresso machines and grinders, and basically make some of the most awesome memories this industry has ever seen.
As we wait with baited breath to hear the location and official dates of the Spring/Summer Camp Pull-A-Shot, let’s take a look back at some of the best write ups about this past October’s Camp. I loved my buddy Michael Harwood’s recollection on the BGA’s blog, which you can read HERE. Also, check out what Trevor and Ryan from MadCap Coffee put together on their blog, HERE.
And don’t forget to read Barista Mag’s Publisher Ken Olson’s account of his awesome experience at Camp in the new issue, December/January, of Barista Magazine! If you don’t have a hard copy in your hand, you can read it online: just go to our homepage, click on the cover image, and read the iMag in its entirety!
Barista Magazine Publisher Ken Olson is headed for Athens, Greece, next week for La Marzocco‘s Out of the Box Athens event! He’s excited. He’s less excited for the 3 layovers he’ll have on the way there and back, but the actual being-in-Greece-checking-out-the-cafe-culture part—that, he’s excited about.
Ken's hotel is really close to the Acropolis! Maybe he'll hike up to it and enjoy a cup of coffee while he's in Athens.
This is the first time the Out of the Box event is touching down in Greece. These La Marzocco events have been hits in all the locales they’ve chosen so far, from Italy to Sweden to the United States. The most recent Out of the Box was held in Milan in conjunction with the Host Milan Expo (you can read my article and see my photos from the event in the new issue of Barista Magazine).
The place was packed during a discussion of pressure profiling at the Out of the Box event that took place in October.
The Out of the Box concept is about bringing passionate coffee people—from cafe owners to baristas to roasters to distributors—together in one intimate space where they can learn from workshops with industry experts, play with espresso machines, interact and learn from one another, and party til long after the sun goes down. This event in Greece next week will be no exception.
Ken will deliver the presentation, “History and Evolution of Coffee Advertising” at Out of the Box. This would explore the origins of marketing coffee, how it became popular, methods used to build and promote coffee culture, how it has changed over the years, and what we can learn from it when marketing specialty coffee today.
Other lectures will be offered by representatives from La Marzocco, as well as Yiannis Taloumis of Taf Coffee, and Stefanos Domatiotis, who has been the Barista Champion of Greece for, like, ever.
Stefanos Domatiotis, Barista Champion of Greece, will give a workshop to attendees of the La Marzocco Out of the Box event on December 13.
Here are the details:
La Marzocco Out of the Box (OOTB) ATHENS
December 13, 2011
The OOTB event in Athens will take place in Technopolis in Gazi, a cultural park in the centre of the city where exhibitions and concerts take place.
10.00-11.30: Welcome & Opening of the OOTB (presented by Taf and La Marzocco)
11.30-12.00 Coffee Break
12.00-1.00 Barista Magazine: History and Evolution of Coffee Advertising (Ken Olson)
1.00-2.00 Lunch
2.00-3.30 New Coffee Place-3rd Wave Espresso Bar (Yiannis Taloumis)
Welcome to Pasteboard - Barista Magazine's blog. Here you'll find whatever is on our minds, in our hearts or under our skin while we work away on the next issue.
