We interview this year’s World AeroPress Championship emcee about the Mexican coffee community’s inclusivity and traceability for the country’s national competition coffees.
BY KAIE BIRD
SPECIAL TO BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE
Photos courtesy of Ximena Rubio
From the editor: This month, we’ve been interviewing competitors and professionals involved in the upcoming World AeroPress Championship (WAC), which takes place November 24 in London. Today, we talk to Ximena Rubio—project director for the WAC and this year’s emcee.
Ximena Rubio is a force to be reckoned with as one of the pillars of the developing Mexican specialty-coffee community and industry. She’s been in the industry since she was 13 years old; Ximena represented Mexico in the 2015 World AeroPress Championship in Seattle and has been involved in the event since then, seeing the WAC as a great way to make coffee more inclusive and welcoming of diversity in her community. This year, along with sending the 2019 Mexican AeroPress Champion to compete in London, Ximena is the project director of the WAC and one of the two emcees for the event.
What were you doing before you became involved in the Mexican AeroPress event?
In 2015, I won the national competition and represented Mexico in Seattle. Being in a world-class competition made me realize how far Mexico was from having a decent competition. I made it my goal to give Mexicans an inclusive platform to learn about coffee, create community, and have fun. It’s exciting to see how big it is now!!! When I first competed it was smaller. Representing Mexico in the WAC was a great opportunity for me to expand my network. I feel fortunate that I was able to make so many amazing friends from all around the world. I have learned so much from every single one of them. I’m also really excited to see my international coffee family!
Why is there value in having this event in Mexico and keeping it going year to year?
What I love about this competition is the inclusivity it generates. Nowadays, competing in other categories is almost unsustainable for developing countries. Competing has become extremely expensive, especially for countries like Mexico where the minimum wage is below $2 USD an hour. Companies do not support competitors. It’s hard for competitors in these countries. The AeroPress competition is great; the competitors can participate without having to invest in material they’re never going to use again.
What does it mean to you as an organizer to send your champion off to compete every year and represent your country abroad?
I think it’s such an important step in their career! I feel excited to be able to mark a difference in their lives, and I’m sure this helps them in a lot of ways. It’s beautiful to be part of that.
Why do you believe the AeroPress Championship is important for our industry? Why is it important to have this event in Mexico?
One of my most important beliefs is that the industry will grow stronger if we create a safe space for everyone in the community. We want to be as inclusive as possible for people all over the country. We want people to feel included in the community, that no matter where they come from, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity, no matter their race, everyone is welcome to participate.
We used this platform to talk about important issues like the LGBT+ community; our emcee was one of the most important coffee folks and they had their first drag performance onstage. This is a huge thing for Mexico, because there are parts of Mexico where this community still suffers from hate crimes and discrimination in their everyday lives. We just want them to know it’s OK to be themselves and that the coffee industry will always have their backs.
There seems to be a lot of focus toward the coffee you’ve selected to use at the preliminaries and national competition. Can you share more about this aspect of your local championship?
I would also like to mention that the coffees we used are also a super important thing to us. We want to focus on the traceability of the coffee. We shared all the information of the coffee and pictures of the farms to all the competitors and our social media. We also had the producers and sources explain the process, varieties, and other important facts to our competitors. For the preliminaries we used a coffee from Ensambles. The coffee comes from Finca Fatima in Veracruz. We were super happy to have Ernesto, the producer and the QC team of Ensambles, to be judges at the competition. They know this coffee the best, so their opinion is very valuable to us.
For the national competition we had a beautiful coffee from Chiapas. The coffee was produced by Petrona Perez, an amazing woman changing the game in her region. This wouldn’t have been possible without Jesús Salazar (aka Cafeologo) from Cafeología. He’s the one helping producers in the area to improve their quality.
What are you looking forward to at this year’s championship in London?
Meeting all the contestants from all over the world and also emceeing the World AeroPress Championship!! This is a dream to me!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kaie Bird is a coffee professional and event organizer based in Tel Aviv, Israel. She is the brains behind Sharing Tables, a group that connects the specialty-coffee community in Tel Aviv through events and outreach.
