Our pal Panda has been organizing an amazing series of Thursday Night Throwdowns in the Pacific Northwest that are open to any and all baristas and coffee enthusiasts, and Barista Magazine is super duper proud to be one of the event sponsors! Panda has decompressed from the excitement of last Thursday’s event, and shared the following description of what went down, plus some dope photos. Thanks, Panda! And folks: if you’re around the Northwest on June 27, y’all best come to Ristretto Roasters, 2181 NW Nicolai Street, in Portland from 7 “10 p.m. for the June edition, PDX-style TNTNW. See you there!
Happy 20th, TNTNW!
By Panda
Whoa! Last night was pretty amazing (Editor’s note: Panda submitted this story on Friday, May 31, but due to technical difficulties (i.e. this editor here not being able to open the damn photo attachments) it took until now for me to publish it. Sorry.). We held the 20th #TNTNW event and Madrona Coffee in Tacoma, Washington. About 50 people showed up from all around the area. The folks at Neptune Coffee located in Greenwood in Seattle closed their shop early just so the staff could attend! SO AWESOME! Madrona’s location is pretty amazing. The roastery is in an old brick building with an extremely high ceiling, lots of exposed wooden beams, and beautiful hardwood floors. I seriously can’t do it justice with just words so check the pics out for full effect. You can really tell this location has a deep history and you begin to wonder what kinds of businesses have occupied this spot through the years.
We were lucky enough to also celebrate Madrona’s four-year anniversary as well as have the throwdown. Madrona supplied an awesome spread of food and even hooked up the thirsty baristas with lots of beer. We even had some Rip Van Wafels in the house. Thanks, Rip! On top of the Rip sponsorship this was the first #TNTNW to roll out our new Title Sponsors. That’s right: for the rest of the year #TNTNW will be brought to you by Barista Magazine (providing a one year subscription to a winner of each event as well as tote bags and magazines), Craft Coffee (you could win a three month subscription), Baratza (Encore, Preciso, Virtuoso, an Esatto and T-shirts), and of course Espresso Parts (hellsa swag and prizes). For more details on the sponsorships check out the official #TNTNW blog.
The beer was flowing and the baristas were pouring. There were so many great pours throughout the night. We wanted to mix things up this time so all pours had to be in macchiato demis! Ohh yeah that totally happened. We gotta keep people on their toes!
After a couple hours of throwing down some beautiful latte art we had our top three competitors. Lizzie (Lizard) Thompson of Neptune Coffee placed third and got that BMag subscription. Brandon Paul Weaver…you might recognize that name. He’s just the #1 brewer in the NW and rockstar Barista at Slate Coffee in Seattle! Well Brandon took second and got himself a new Barata grinder. Our victor for the evening was none other than Mr. Cole McBride. He’s Director of Education at Visions Espresso. Cole took home a three month subscription to craft Coffee and a nice bit of cash!
Big thanks to the sponsors, Madrona Coffee Roasters, and everyone who attended #TNTNW. Our community here in the PNW is strong. We have something special out here and it’s kind of a beautiful thing.
Next month we are going down south to Portland! Ristretto Roasters will be hosting and it won’t just be latte art this time! We’ll also have a blind sensory triangulation w/ Le Nez Du Cafe scent kit. We can’t wait to see you in PDX!
These TNT’s are so fun. Looking forward to the next one!