flyingthud

I’ve been here since Wednesday, and have had some truly terrible coffee as well as one of the best cappuccinos in months. It would be remiss of me to reveal where and when I received both extremes as I’m judging in the finals today. Yesterday saw 19 competitors with 6 going through to join the two regional champions for a final of 8 today. There were roughly 19/20 judges in attendance and for the most part they were rotated round to round.

It was nice to have the time to talk through people’s performances, and I made a point of trying to write down as much as possible on the score sheets. The rotation system allows you to drink a lot more of people’s drinks, though by 5pm, I was eagerly awaiting the final round. I sorta felt the need to keep talking at least 2 sips on each drink as I felt it would be unfair if I dropped down to one for the later competitors, ultimately ending up in a very caffeinated and slightly queasy Stephen.

I’m really looking forward to today, the finals should prove very exciting and I reckon tonight’s party at Manic Coffee will be a good opportunity for everyone to relax and mingle without having to worry about mixing judges and competitors.

I’ll have more time to check out the city after the competition as I’m here till Friday and then fly back to Vancouver. So hopefully I’ll throw another post up in a day or two with some more musings about the CBC and any learnings from the Toronto Coffee scene.