What a busy week it’s been here at Barista Magazine’s HQ in Portland, Oregon; We’re in the thick of the work building the August/September issue, which ”in case you didn’t know ”will be our World Barista Championship commemorative issue! We’re shaking things up from the way we’ve done this special annual issue in the past, and we hope you guys will love it as much as we already do!
Not only are we working on the magazine, but Publisher Kenneth Olson flew off to Chicago to exhibit for Barista Magazine at Coffee Fest as well as serve as a judge for the always popular and well-attended Latte Art Championship! I’m on pins and needles waiting for the announcement of the winner, which will be livestreamed at 4 p.m. Chicago time ”that’s just one hour from now! Here’s the link so you can watch online, or just check Barista Magazine’s Facebook page for up to the minute news!
We can’t wait to find out which of these pours will win first and second place! They were poured this morning but the artists have to wait til 4 p.m. for the announcement!
But back to our week in review! In case you missed any of our daily news updates, here’s what happened on Barista Magazine’s blog this week…
On Monday, we recapped the excitement from the World AeroPress Championship, of which Barista Magazine was, as we are every year, a sponsor. We were so excited to see this competition shake out! In the end, Jeff Verelle of Caffenation in Belgium won the title ”for the second time! Jeff won this international competition in 2011, as well. In second place was Wille Yli-Luoma of Heart Roasters in Portland, Ore., and third-place winner Tibot Várady of Espresso Embassy in Hungary.
On Tuesday, we had the great pleasure of posting an article by Colter Coffee‘s Jesse Klevel about a super-successful Barista Jam held in Kalispell, Montana. Great story with some fun photos from coffee in this sometimes neglected part of the United States.
Also on Tuesday, we were stoked to post an article by Panda (aka Michael Fernandez of Espresso Parts) about the recent TNT Northwest that took place at Madrona Coffee in Tacoma last week. Panda supplied lots of details and photos from the event, and included details about the next #TNTNW, which will be held at Ristretto Roasters on Portland, Oregon, at the end of June.
Wednesday is one of our favorite days of the week! Know why? Because we get to host our weekly Humpday Giveaway Contest! Each Wednesday, we give away an amazing coffee related prize, and this week we were super duper thrilled to be able to gift a gorgeous, handmade book created by Ben Jones of Batdorf & Bronson to one lucky winner…
Also on Wednesday, we were super happy to have an article by Wade Reed of Joe Bean Coffee Roasters in Rochester, New York, write about a Thursday Night Throwdown that took place there on May 23. This is the fifth TNT that Joe Bean has hosted, and Wade writes about the thrill he had seeing how much participants have advanced their knowledge and skill over the course of the events.
On Thursday, we tallied all the folks who answered our Humpday Trivia question correctly, and randomly drew one name to see who would be the winner of this week’s contest, and the amazing handmade book graciously provided by Ben Jones, and the winner was…
On Friday, I was having fun getting all these photo texts from Ken from Coffee Fest Chicago, so I decided to post them to the blog so you could enjoy them, too!
Saturday rolled around and I was a little bored here in Portland without Ken around. So I decided to do some coffee science experiments! I was having so much fun researching coffee science, that I made a whole blog post about it here! Coffee science rules!
Usually we take Sunday off from posting new stuff to the blog, and instead post a recap of the week like you’re reading right here, but I was too excited to hold off on posting the awesome article that Alexandra LittleJohn of Verve Coffee Roasters wrote about her experience at the Barista Guild of America’s Camp last week in Wisconsin. It’s so great! If you haven’t read it, read it now!
And that’s what’s been going on here at Barista Magazine’s exciting blog! I have a whole list of cool topics that we’re going to cover every single day of next week, so stay tuned! We’ll see you back here all week!
