Last week it was the UK Barista Championship finals down in London. It would've been great to go and watch as it was all part of a 3 day coffee festival but I was too busy with design work and London is way to busy a place for me to particularly want to visit.
However thanks to the wonders of the internet I was able to follow the finalists with some live, online streaming although a bit intermittent with the slow connection here.
I had some local interest in the 20 finalists, we had Gordon Howell & Steve Dyson from the coffee shops The Attic & Spring Espresso which I frequent in York. Also in the final and who ended up coming overall 3rd was Howard Barwick who did some of my barista training when I did a mini course the other year, excellent result for him. Another name I recognised in the last 6 was Dale Harris who works with HasBean who I usually buy my subscription coffee from.
They all did really well as it's a high pressure performance both pulling your shots and talking about your coffee infront of 5 or 6 judges. They get 15 minutes to serve cappuccinos to 4 judges, then they serve espressos and finally, the creative bit is for them to serve their own signature drinks. Some weird concoctions were being served for the signatures, coffee with rhubarb, a version of cola and coffee, Steve Dyson did coffee with oranges as it was synonymous with York and chocolate oranges! Interesting stuff.
I am currently between subscriptions with my HasBean coffee, it's brilliant coffee but having a delivery of fresh beans every week is starting to get expensive so I'm taking a coffee break for a while and have taken this opportunity to broaden my coffee horizons and sample a mini pack from another roaster, this time Union coffee.
It's a selection of S. American coffees and so far so good. Having been without coffee for a week it was good to crank the machine up again as I was having withdrawal symptoms!
Some coffee links:
Best cafes in York, with proper baristas & fine coffee
http://harlequinyork.com/
http://www.springespresso.co.uk/
http://www.perkypeacockcoffee.co.uk/
Coffee roasters for online purchasing:
http://www.hasbean.co.uk/
http://www.unionroasted.com/
http://www.jamesgourmetcoffee.com/
http://www.origincoffee.co.uk/
Origin coffee have very groovy packaging!
Went to Absolute Coffee's HQ in Sheffield today for a barista training course run by Absolute's coffee guru, Youri. We started straight in at the deep end with espresso which was a great way to wake you up and enjoy those most intense flavours that only come from an espresso.
We covered the grinding, dosage, tamping, temperature, time to drip through etc in order to make the perfect cup. The equipment is superb, the most accurate of grinders and a wonderful La Spaziale espresso machine.
Youri did plenty of test cups before letting us loose on his machine and then we tried our hand and eventually got a fairly consistent result.
Swiftly moving on to produce a flat white, which I believe is from New Zealand, Youri showed us the milk steaming process. This is then poured into a double shot of ristretto and the flat smooth milk gives this drink the most velvety texture and was very delicious. I've had one in Costa and it was rubbish compared to this.
Next we did cappuccinos and lattes and the skill here is in the milk preparation. Some shop bought cappuccinos are piled high with froth and often burnt milk so you have to get the milk foamy and glossy rather than loads of bubbles and froth. Make 2 espressos and then your first lot of steamed milk with the foam goes into the cappuccino, the remaining, smoother milk goes into the latte.
I was delighted when Youri also showed us some latte art to finish off with. This takes practise but I did get better results than the other coffee course I did. See the pics of Youri's bear and rosetta, made it look so easy!
The result of today is I definitely need a new grinder and a machine would be nice too (pricey though, 100's of pounds) although I may have to start with the aeropress gadget (under £30) which gives much better and more consistent results to a cafetiere.
It has been an amazing day and Youri is a great teacher, to find someone so passionate about what they do is a real joy and learning has been a pleasure.
