Moving to London

In the airport again. Today I fly to London on what I think is my first ever flight were I only booked one way. Though I still haven’t found an apartment, my soon to be flat mate and I are working to sort that out quickly.

 

Square Mile is beginning to take shape rapidly and the need for me to be full time in London has come. I’m so excited about the kind of work we’re gonna do. With respect to my former employers, I’ve never worked in a job so in line with my attitude to coffee and just knowing how much we’ll learn every day is, to coin the americans, awesome. Or is it killer? I’m never sure. Oh to be street.

 

Nick Brown of Manic Coffee and of dwelltime fame is in London too on a college trip so I’m hoping to catch up with him and give him shit for killing seals while we taste the best London has to offer.

 

Regarding preparing for competition, I’m re working my whole routine. Everything will be new bar perhaps a few table setting things and maybe my tamper which I just found out I left in LA. Luckily its set to only work with my hand, and will self destruct should another fool try. There was a gun in Judge Dredd that did that, anyone wanna remind me of the name?

 

I’m sure you were all watching the Western Regionals in Berkley last weekend, thrilling stuff. Big Congrats to Baca and my pals at intelly for doing so well. 798 is such a big score, it’ll be interesting to see if anything in the US final gets that high. I’m hoping to go to the SCAA so hopefully I’ll catch up with some of you there. 

 

Sorry theres no pics in this post.

Christmas Presents

After just watching far too much crap tv and enjoying every second of it (Speed), I’m about to go asleep on this my 25th Christmas. I had a great day spent with family and friends and hope you all did too. To relate this post to coffee I can only offer some measly feedback on the new Bodum Kona that I bought for my brother. I tried a coarse brew at 60g per litre and it was a little sharp so after a quick text to James in Norway, I coarsed that bad boy up and brewed again- (the body boy in this case being a sumatra that Ariosa are currently carrying). The result was really quite nice; rounder, nuanced enough for an indo and certainly seemed to strike favour with my sister, but thats only because years of living in robusta heavy Barcelona has led her down a path that favours that bit of ‘earth’ in the cup. If I find time, in the morning I’ll try brew it side by side with a chemex and see how it does, though I did notice today that it wasn’t as clean as my chemex brews of late.

Moving away from coffee, should you be interested, here is some of the music I will be now listening to over Christmas;

The new Bonnie Prince Billy – Ask Forgiveness (theres a great cover of the Thom Yorke and Bjork track from the Dancer in the Dark soundtrack)

Keith Jarrett – The Koln Concert (which I already had on vinyl but never on cd and can tell you already its lovely)

Menomena – Friend and Foe ( I’ve no idea who these guys are other than my sister recommends them and the artwork on the cover is apparently re-created on stage)

Martin Simpson- Prodigal Son (lovely guitar playing and a nice cover of Louisiana by Randy Newman)

Caribou- Andorra (have had this for a while but its great and will no doubt get play time)

Other gifts included The Trial of Colonel Sweeto by Nicholas Gurewitch from my brother which is some of the funniest and prettiest sketches I’ve ever seen. See example below;

I can now also boast all three Seasons of Arrested Development, (thanks to Nick Brown of Manic for first getting me into it) as well as some nice clothing from my favourite company Angry. In addition to this I had numerous kind donations of dollars for my upcoming trip to NY. Does anyone know if the Christmas Intelligentsia cups can be bought in Manhattan? I need a few, as well as super fresh coffee to bring home, especially Counter Culture, Novo, Intelly and anything else those of you in the know might like. Any tips would be greatly welcomed.

Will try post results of any brew tests, even if all I ultimately say is ‘bodum kona good’ or ‘chemex reigns still’.

Happy Christmas all and enjoy my day tomorrow.

Toronto

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.