flyingthud


Irish Barista Competition 2008
March 10, 2008, 1:03 am
Filed under: Uncategorized

Em, yeah…. I’m not really sure what to say. I found out a few hours ago that I won the Irish Barista Competition, and following the immediate elation on hearing the news, the time since was spent getting great feedback from judges, packing everything up, driving back across the city, unpacking, grabbing food and then braving a severe storm to get home. Sorry to waffle, I guess I’m just saying I haven’t made sense of it yet. What I will say quickly though, is that this years competition was so well run in comparison to previous years. It was great to perform in a format similar to the world’s and know reliable people were running the show. The standard of the competition was so high and I’m not sure exactly but I believe the top three were very close. I thought Fan of Insomnia and Andrius of Bewleys were great competitors, and great examples of quality bar baristas currently working in Ireland. I met a lot of new baristas, and couldn’t help but feel frustrated at how theres no facility to let baristas hang out and play around on machines. Valid attempts at starting a guild in Ireland seem to have fallen to the wayside and I think its a real shame for the clearly booming sub culture. Damn, I feel all negative now. I’ll probably edit this in the morning, so please don’t take offense or think ill of me. I will write a detailed post about my performance tomorrow as well as the challenges endured in training. I will thank more people then too, but for right now, I need you all to know that if it wasn’t for Jenny and Tim giving up so much of their time and energy, I would never even have gotten the whiff of success. Thank you so so much. I’m delighted, and incredibly tired.


20 Comments so far
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congrats!

Comment by t o n x March 10, 2008 @ 1:26 am

congrats, and well done!
(i hear soup night cheersing you from here!)

Comment by amber fox March 10, 2008 @ 1:42 am

your time has come big boy well done on the triple

Comment by arthur March 10, 2008 @ 4:03 am

Absolutely brilliant. Congratulations!

Comment by Meister March 10, 2008 @ 4:43 am

Oh man, hat trick? Got to be a first… Congratulations man!

Comment by Ben Kaminsky March 10, 2008 @ 5:37 am

Huge congratulations Stephen. Never doubted for a minute you’d win. Speak soon.

D

Comment by David March 10, 2008 @ 7:25 am

Well done! Is there no stopping SMCR?!

Comment by Paul W March 10, 2008 @ 8:43 am

I’ve congratulated you already Stephen, so now I think it’s appropriate to congratulate Jenny and Tim! Well done guys. As Stephen points out it’s a team win.
Hope you had a good nights sleep and it’s settling in.
You’re the champ!

Comment by Klaus March 10, 2008 @ 9:28 am

Having been on board for the last few weeks, training daily, and seeing the performance develop and become more polished and considered, I can honestly say that Stephen not only deserves each title, but all of them.

It was with total and utter dedication that you managed to win all these, and have every right to be completely proud and satisfied.

Well done, again.

Comment by timstyles March 10, 2008 @ 9:34 am

Congrats Steven!

Your an inspiration to baristi all around the world. What a hat-trick!

Good Luck in Copenhagen, hopfully see you there if I can organise myself.

Comment by mentness/stuartlee March 10, 2008 @ 10:13 am

Delighted and excited for you. Well done to you, Jenny and Tim great support. Hope Tim got all the pints he deserved! Talk soon.

Comment by Jackie Malone March 10, 2008 @ 12:25 pm

Congratulations Stephen you totally deserve the credit you will now be getting. All your hard work and dedication to quality coffee is inspiring. Way to go.
Logan

Comment by Logan March 10, 2008 @ 1:54 pm

Well done beardy boy. Sorry i couldn’t be there but my sisters house burned down. no really!
Delighted for you and your team.

go square mile. you get a trophy cabinet of your own now?

Comment by Sé March 10, 2008 @ 4:31 pm

Well deserved!!! been there seen it:)Good luck in Copenhagen!!!Once again congrats:))

Comment by Konrad Oleksak March 10, 2008 @ 6:08 pm

Congratulations hun - I am, as always, so proud of you

Comment by Jenny March 10, 2008 @ 6:15 pm

Stephen Morrissey! What fantastic news.. I know someone who is a national champion!From listening to Jenny telling us about how much prep went into it I know you really really deserved it!Enjoy every minute x Cathy

Comment by Cathy Shevlin March 10, 2008 @ 7:15 pm

Excellent job, good to see you do so well.

Comment by Ryan March 10, 2008 @ 7:53 pm

Congratulations Stephen! Arthur broke the news at the cafe on Sunday after giving Brad a call. Keep it up! Best of luck in Copenhagen.

Comment by Peter March 10, 2008 @ 9:27 pm

Pretty delay on this man… but congrats! you rock! see you again soon!

Comment by Luis R March 17, 2008 @ 9:51 pm

Great to see you at the compatition and really enjoy the way you did . The best wishes for Copenhagen!

kinds regards fan zhang of insomnia

Comment by fan March 21, 2008 @ 12:24 pm

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