That was close

Its not that we’re not prepared, its more that we didn’t realise Tokyo was not the same as every other big city. It seems fresh cream is not a common item in every grocery store. About an hour ago, Jen, James and myself were pacing around central Tokyo, checking every convenience store and food hall we could find in search of cream and a certain, not too unusual herb. Thankfully, we did eventually find it, but sweet Jesus, that was tight, especially as the shops were due to close a half hour or so later.

To further add to the stress, we were yet to find a local milk we were happy with, so on returning to the hotel, some tasting had to happen. We had already tasted quite a few drinks that day, especially milk drinks so we weren’t particularly looking forward to this. I say we, it seems James, really means it when he says he’s not a big milk fan, and so the tasting was down to me. Now I realise this might seem last minute work, but we didn’t think the milks we orginally sampled would or could be so bad.

Anyway, so today as you well know was the first day of the World Barista Championship. For a complete list and full video of all the competitors, please look to www.zachzachary.com. Zachary and Katie have been relentless in their coverage, glued to their laptops and cameras or running around catching quick interviews all day and they deserve an awful lot of credit for sticking to their word so much in what they’d achieve here in Tokyo. They’re also lovely people, so lovely in fact that they can wear semi-matching outfits and still come across charming- something so many hideous people attempt and fail to pull off.

Credit too, must go to Nick Cho, the Master of Cermonies for all 23 competitors today and as far as I know is set to do it all again tomorrow. I’d never met him before or seen him do MC, but he’s really good at hosting the competition and I particularly like how he addresses each barista as ‘barista champion’ on stage.

The event, to me seems very well organised. As James’ coach, I was backstage quite a lot, and got to see a lot of the logistics that go into making the whole thing tick. It really is astonishing and apart from one or two small hick ups that were really out of the organisers’ control, they seemed to have pulled it off perfectly.

I watched quite a few of the competitors but sadly couldn’t see them all. The tightest performers, from the not too valid audience perspective, were Norway, Denmark, New Zealand, and Mexico. I heard others were great too. I saw no one who seemed unprepared or embarrassingly out of their debt. The standard is getting higher and higher, making the notion of me competing next year both more challenging and kind of terrifying.

James is on at 9 am in the morning, first of the day. I will momentarily be on stage. His coffees seemed to have made the journey unscathed and were tasting pretty wonderful in practice today. The polishing is all done and all the equipment is safe, and accounted for. We just decided what music is best after deliberating for months. I’m wondering now if his shoes need polishing, but hey, with the new rules now,…

You should also check out the barista magazine blog where Ken is posting his clever insights quite often through each day.

Check flickr for more, and think kind thoughts towards James in the morning, though most of you are probably asleep at that time. Nevermind.

London to Tokyo

Its now ten to three in the morning, James is writing his ‘the night before post’ and so am I. Its been a few long days of practice, the irresistible draw of the dominos pizza place downstairs, and final polishing of James’ performance for Tokyo. A taxi arrives in four hours to collect us and bring us to Heathrow where after a connection in Amsterdam we fly on to Narita airport in Tokyo.

We’re sorta behind in our packing due to some much needed comic relief after his final run through. I won’t go on for too long here as I do have ambitious hopes of reading a few more chapters of the new harry potter book and maybe, just maybe catching a bit of shut eye. However, his drinks taste good, really good. I’m oddly enjoying his capps and espresso more than his signature drink. Don’t wanna give much away, but his approach this year shows innovation on a much subtler level, and sadly will be mainly obvious to those tasting whats in the cup.

I won’t say it was hard constantly criticising him over the last few days, or that it wasn’t shamefully enjoyable, but now that ‘practice’ is over (sorta), I’m looking forward to just getting over there, meeting old faces and new, and enjoying a slightly terrifyingly new city.

I’ll try to post as much as I can, but if you know me at all, and I suspect none of you really do, then don’t expect much. Wow, I am a git.

Head Home

I have been sitting in LAX since 5 pm and it is now 8.45. My flight doesn’t depart till ten. Its delayed, so I’ll miss my connection in London to Dublin and will have to get the next flight, resulting in me not getting home till around 9 pm tomorrow night. Despite that, I’m oddly not in a bad mood.

I’ve been going through all my photos from the last few weeks; those from the road trip down the west coast and the more recent shots taken over the last few weeks that I’ve been working for Intelligentsia here in LA. With the opening of the cafe and roastery moments away(interpret moments as you wish), its not easy leaving.

I’d say the best thing I took from working here was the chance to cup every day, sometimes twice. If you know me, then you know this is realy all I wanna do these days. Not to suggest that I’ve mastered espresso, or that I ever will, but I just find it boring now and again. I’m not sure if I’m having trouble nailing that God Shot, or whether I just don’t like espresso. I think the most I ever enjoy a coffee is on a cupping table.

Take today for an example; The best coffee I tasted on this trip so far was a Kenya Mamuto from George Howell in the Clover Lab. I’ve never gotten so much berry before in such an articulate, exciting cup. But over the last few days, a lot of new crops have been coming into the works, and sweet jesus they’re tasty. If you can get your hands on the new tres santos micro lots, then do, oh and you should also try their Papa New Guinea, which is just so wonderfully not a typical Indonesian. But today was probably the best table I’ve done so far. There was a number of pre ship samples in the flight as well as a few production roasts of a few new fresh crops. Its always tough to properly access with a table of sample roasts up against production roasts but I scored everything 86+. But the best coffee by far, scoring and 95 from me, and an 97 from Doug, was a sample roast of their new Yirgacheffe which has just landed at Chicago.

What made this different for me, was that it was super chuggable, and not just the weird exciting cup I usually go for. It was like marmalade and chocolate but it was so clean, and so articulate in its nuances that I just couldn’t stop slurping. I loved that todays cupping, the last of my trip was the most enjoyable so far. I’m not a great cupper but I want to be. I know where my skill level is at and I love that I can set myself a clear challenge of improving such a particular skill set over the next few years, and presumably for the rest of my life.

I’ll try to more of a recap in a day or two when I recover, or perhaps on the flight to Tokyo, although I suspect I’ll have my head buried in the new harry potter book during that.

I’d like to say a quick but sincere thanks to all the crew at Intelligentsia LA for making me feel so welcome and teaching me so much over the last while. I’ll stay in touch.

Oh, and I just vomited an awful lot of pics up onto flickr, some you may or may not find interesting.

Independence Day

So today is the 4th of July, and I worry I’m not being patriotic enough as I realise I’m wearing all green, as opposed to any stars or stripes. But I’m not too bothered, its another gloriously hot day in LA and I’m sipping a tasty cappuccino made off the gs3 in our Kitchen.

I suspect in time people will start to better understand why some people hold Intelligentsia in such high regard. Its probably fair to say some of their biggest merits aren’t really known, definitely not within the general public, but also not really in the coffee community either. That said, the baristas in training for the new cafe here in Silverlake are being thoroughly trained in all aspects of the company various buying practices and along with some useful accessories will be able to explain to customers just why the company is so good, and perhaps more importantly, just what specialty coffee is and where its heading.

I have around 2 more weeks working here with the LA Intelly crew before I head back home to Dublin. I will spend a few days there before flying over to London and begin helping James polish off his routine for the WBC. Jenny, my infinitely better half, should be tagging along and will also form part of Team Hoffmann for Tokyo. (We won’t actually be called Team Hoffmann by the way) Getting to go to Tokyo is fierce exciting, especially as I was quite sore to miss Bern last year. It’ll be interesting to see how big the western contingent is over there, seeing as its so bloody, but wonderfully far away.

As to what I’m doing after Tokyo, the details are hazy, but there are plans.

I’ll try to give some more insights into what Intelligentsia are doing here in LA , but for the moment I recommend you check out the intelli.la blog for the latest news and grumbles from the camp.

In other, more personal news. The beard is gone. No pictures currently exist. I am half the man I was. I don’t like it.