Welcome to Barista Magazine’s World Barista Championship Countdown, a series of posts designed to get folks excited about the 2013 WBC, which will kick off on May 23 in Melbourne, Australia!
As the Exclusive Media Sponsor of the WBC, we at Barista Magazine want to blow the lid off this international event to profvide you with more exciting, relevant, and timely coverage than you’ve ever had before!
The WBC is the world’s biggest and most revered coffee competition. The 53 National Barista Champions who will take the stage in Melbourne have been practicing for months ”some even years ”to ready themselves for this event. But since some of them will only perform once, we want to draw this out as long as we can to give the National Barista Champs the esteem they deserve.
In the coming days, we will be posting profiles of each of the 53 National Barista Champions, as well as informative articles about the WBC, interviews with past WBC champs, and much more.
Even if you’re not able to go to the WBC in Melbourne, you can be there with us via this here blog as well as the Live Stream that will commence at 6 p.m. on May (that’s PDT, which is a day before Aussie time).
For the first installment of our WBC Countdown series, we’re excited to share some photos from our dear friend, Italian Barista Champion Francesco Sanapo. I saw Francesco last week in Milan during the DC Campus event hosted by Dalla Corte for the National Latte Art and Coffee in Good Spirits Champs, which was a forum for them to ready themselves for their international competitions. Francesco, who has been practicing day and night for the WBC, drove down from Florence to spend a day and eveing with our DC Campus group, which was an amazing treat.
While he was there, he told me about a really cool thing he was planning: he had invited the Italian coffee community to come and watch him run through his routine. He told me, “I am competing for all of Italy; this is not only about me. It is about all of us, all of Italy.” Beautifully said, Francesco.
More than 50 people turned out for Francesco’s run-through on Monday at his roastery. After a stellar performance, Francesco answered questions about the competition, and even gave some hands on demos to visiting baristas. Also on hand to provide information about the competition was Nuova Simonelli‘s Lauro Fioretti, who is also on his way to Melbourne in just a handful of days.
