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Kyle Glanville's Way to Copenhagen

The Intelligentsia


With the Black Cat website.
And the Black Cat Blog, on which you can follow, almost day by day, how the American Champion Kyle Glanville and his team are preparing theirselves for the World Championships.

But they don't speak anymore about the Single origin or Blend selected for Copenhagen. Is it still the El Salvador Matalapa, with it's typical maple-brown sugar-hazelnut flavor?

Following the blog and watching the video from his series in Minneapolis can be very learnful to all Barista's competing at championships. You never know what you can steal from this Master.

Barista Jam II Photo's

Barista Jam II

Yesterday eve we had top roasters, Barista champions, Espresso Bar Managers, SCAE Belgium reps, Caffenation staff, Antwerp coffee lovers and others at our second professional Barista Jam.
Main objective was meeting one another and drinking, cupping and talking coffee. And it worked wonderfully.

At the cupping table an impressive line of singles from all over the world :

El Salvador Matalapa (Sweet Maria's)
Nicaragua Dipilto WP Decaf (Sweet Maria's)
Yemen Mokha Matari (Hasbean)
Kenya Getumbwini (Hasbean)
Rwanda Cup of Gold COCAF Amizero (Hasbean)
Honduras La Fortuna Cup Of Excellence (Hasbean)
Ethiopia Sidamo (Vermeulen)
Papua New Guinea (Vermeulen)
Zambia AA (Vermeulen)
Kenya Mamuto (Terroir)
Colombia El Descanso Huila (Terroir)
Brazil Ingletierra (Verellen)
Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Idado Valley (Verellen)
Bali Kintamina (Verellen)

Amazing isn't it?
Most praised were the Mamuto (of course - explosion of berry and chocolate), Bali (what a revelation - nice cherry, earthy taste), Rwanda (wild, strong and espresso potential), Matalapa (fine balance, nice finish) and most controversial the Yemen of course. Is this coffee or liquid rubber? :-)

Espresso :

Coffee Collective Espresso Blend
Papua New Guinea Dark Roast (Vermeulen)
Brazil Daterra Yellow Bourbon (Vermeulen)
Stumptown Mountain Dew Blend
Espresso Vivace Blend
Bagels and Beans Panama Espresso Blend (Boca)
Caffenation House Blend

Say no more.

La Esmeralda 2008

Sometimes i think they talk too much about this Panama farm. But on the other hand it's good publicity for the specialty coffee industry.
For myself it's always interesting to see what coffee companies are willing to pay for this (exceptional) bean.
Here the list.
It's mostly an American thing, but also Japan is buying in hard and to my pleasure i see Boon bought a small batch at the Panama auction as well.

As a final remark : if this is the top in the world, then you notice the money a coffee farmer can make is not to remarkable. 476 000 dollar in total for the Esmeralda lot. Not really a big company, nevertheless the reputation. A popular espresso bar can make the same figures.

(Also check Jimseven.com for his thoughts about the auction)

Thank God it's Friday Pics

Some kind of magic is happening at the Caffenation bar at Friday afternoon.

Barista News International

When i have my Google alerts doing their thing i stay perfectly informed about the newest gear, the do's and don't, the championship results and ..... the gossip.

But this week nine out of ten of articles about Barista's in the States are about society figures and moral issues it looks like.

The biggest news this week was about a Barista fattening up the Olsen twins. Scary! ;-)

Or the fact the Barista's at Chick-a-latte and Cowgirls Espresso making cappuccino's in their bikini's. How conservative can you be if you have problems with this?
Was it a good cappuccino? That's the question! :-)

The only 'serious' Barista news came from down under, .... again.
It's about Andy Freeman, who started up the Coffee Snobs website and forum. Interesting, but these advertisements on the web pages are so annoying.

So, as a conclusion i'm very happy most of the information about what's going on in the coffee world can be found on webblogs like these you find in my link list. "Better info, less bullshit".