Barista Camp Europe begins at Eden Beach Resort outside of Athens, Greece.

The Barista Guild of Europe’s First Barista Camp Europe Opens in Greece

The inaugural Barista Camp Europe began yesterday at Eden Beach Hotel and Resort outside of Athens, Greece. With 160 attendees, the registrations actually outstripped the slots available and camp ended up with a waiting list of baristas wanting to attend. Originally, the camp organizers had anticipated 150 baristas, but ultimately managed to expand capacity by 10 slots. That still left some baristas out, but perhaps the next installment will be able to accommodate more.

Each barista was given an option of three different tracks to enroll in: Poseidon, Hera, and Demeter, and each track has room for 50 enrollees. The Poseidon track focuses on brewing, while Hera concentrates on barista skills. Demeter offers an in-depth exploration of sensory analysis. Each track is built on the educational series offered by the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE).

Camp officially opened yesterday with opening remarks from James Hoffmann from Square Mile Coffee and a keynote from Madcap Coffee’s Trevor Corlett. Trevor spoke about his experience on the Barista Guild of America‘s (BGA) board as they organized the first BGA Barista Camps four years ago.

Without a flash, the scene was nearly pitch black, but the baristas played volleyball anyway.

After the keynote, the attendees broke into 16 teams of 10. They had dinner and then had a series of team challenges to perform. They included a triangular cupping, a blindfolded latte art competition, beach volleyball in the dark, a bad beer tasting, and a dance competition set to traditional Greek music.

This morning, the educational sessions began in earnest.