So I’m through to the final 8. I’m so delighted to go through to the finals, but annoyingly can’t relax yet as the challenges of retooling the performance for tomorrow become clear in my head. A number of things went wrong in my prep and in my performance; stupid things like forgetting milk and not having the grinder switched on. The result was a more nervous thud, who possibly used old milk giving me horribly bubbly milk for the capps. In addition, the bar wasn’t lighted as much as I’d have liked, so I didn’t actually see the poor quality milk till I started pouring the capps. I don’t normally use the milk provided but the sponsor this year was the milk I was going to use anyway so I didn’t really consider I may end up grabbing an old one or how the light of the last few days might mess it up. Tomorrow I won’t make the same mistake.
I regretted also not bringing my grinder of choice, the WBC spec Compak into the latte art comp yesterday as after 15 minutes practice and the shots in my prep, I didn’t feel as comfortable or in control as I did in practice last weekend. Tomorrow I only have 15 minutes practice on the machine, (which is a daft idea seeing as today there were 27 competitors and tomorrow only 8 ) and will spend most of this time dialing in the grind, and familiarising my self with the speed of the compak as opposed to the super jolly I used for the latte art comp yesterday.
I wasn’t as nervous as I feared I may be, but I did sweat a lot (samples given on request), and I perhaps didn’t smile as much as I’d have liked to. That said, I finished in time, and the sig drink turned out well. I’ll give a more detailed post on my performance tomorrow, but to give you the jist; Coffee Collective Coffee (which has honestly brought my number of great wholly tasty espressos up to around 15), and a sig drink using almond milk, chocolate malt and espresso. I’ll write how I developed the performance and some of the challenges we faced, but for the moment, I just wanna give my thanks to Jen, Tim, Karl, James, Anette, Family, son, and the good aul boys at Coffee Collective, I really am just beard and belly without you.
For those of you who don’t read Tim Styles Blog, you should start. In just under 4 hours I’ll start my prep in the semi finals of the Irish Barista Competition. Everything is polished as of last night and all that remains is to pick up some water, a little ironing and some careful packing into Jen’s Ford Ka. (I am in the process of learning to drive)
Yesterday I won Ireland’s first Latte Art Competition. This took me by complete surprise as I knew people entering whose skill level surpasses me, Bela and Fan to name two. It seems my tech and taste gave me the extra point that beat Bela. Bela did a double rosetta for his macchiato, a triple for the cpp/latte and some sort of fancy etch I didn’t get to see for his signature. I on the other hand, in a spirit of fear and poor planning, opted for a rosetta on the mac, one on the capp/latte and then a tulip on the sig. The more I think about this the worse I feel, and I was rightly warned by the judges of the need to be a hell of a lot more creative for Worlds in Copenhagen.
The competition was really well organised yesterday, with probably the best stage set up yet seen in an Irish Competition. Marzocco FB70s were the machine of choice thanks to my former employer Bewleys and it was a great chance for me to re familiarise myself with one after training off the synesso. Working off the white counter tops was a shock reminder too of how dirt builds up as again I’d be training on a black counter.
I will post tonight on whether I got through to the finals tomorrow or not. Thanks for the kind words, those of you who left them, for those of you who didn’t… Well that says it all doesn’t it.
