Ok, so when you have a competition where the only rule is there are no rules, it’s true it can be a little difficult to tell who wins. What’s happened in the past is the judges retire to a room somewhere where they go over all of their scoresheets from all of the competitions over the previous days and tally up points. Each piece of the competition can be worth a different percentage and things that seem like they may be worth a load of points may turn out to be actually worth not so much. And no one ever knows how the verdict is reached. As someone who has seen the actual process, I can confess that it appears as grueling for the judges as those who are judged, simply because it all feels very opaque and happenstance instead of those key words of our industry quality and transparency.
Well, that all changes this year. This year there’s a simple way to tell who wins, whoever has the most cash!
The theme of this year’s competition is the Café of the Future, and each team was required to create a business plan for the café they would like to see built. Tomorrow each team will get a lump sum of barista dollars (B$), B$10,000 to be precise. Every activity will have a cash reward based on the points scored. And teams can fined for any rule violations. Additionally, the teams will present their business plans to potential investors, who can in turn either support or decline to give the teams access to their funds.
On Saturday, the teams will use their funds to buy everything they need to open their café – coffee, equipment, employees, etc. Then the public will be invited to purchase B$ which they can then spend at the café of their choice.
At the end of the event, each team’s money will be totaled and the national team with the most cash on hand will win the Nordic Barista Cup. Even cooler, however, is the money raised through the cafés will be donated to help a school in Nicaragua and provide starter funding for next year’s competition. So Scott better keep counting out those bills because tomorrow, the teams will be striving to be good earners!
