flyingthud

First off can I apologise for the extra 1000 people who’ve checked my blog in the last few days hoping to see some interesting content. I have never been a prolific blogger and I don’t want any of you thinking this whole WBC thing will change that!

I think it would never have sunk in if it wasn’t for the rapid number of people adding me on friends on facebook. This is particularly worrying as they say the more facebook friends you have the less real ones you have. I suspect the reality will be the more facebook friends you have, the less cool you simply are.

That said, I do want to thank the large number of people who contributed to my unexpected success. 

Jenny, you have been by my side for the last 7 years, patiently letting me drag you around to cafe after cafe when we should be seeing the sights each time we travel. You are my best friend and the reason I smile at irregular intervals on buses, tubes and walking down the street. You helped me so much more than just polishing, but in saying that, I’m still kinda pissed you missed that water glass in the semis. I love you, and have lived a happier life because of you. Still, that water glass was filthy….

James & Anette, your guidance and skill have been crucial in my learning over the last few years. Thank you for showing me how to make great coffee and roasting great coffee for me to use. I was so honoured to be part of Team UK last year, and your help this year has been invaluable, in particular the whole driving all my gear and coffee from London to Copenhagen.  

Thank you for putting up with my goofiness, constant questions and poor oratory skills, you truly are good friends. I am so excited about what the three of us can achieve over the next few years at Square Mile Coffee.

Tim Styles, I would never have been successful in the Irish Competition, and gone on to Copenhagen if it hadn’t been for you. You’re relentless help and feedback was just so valuable, especially in the context of your kitchen and bar work. We’ll always have Muslin, but then you did break my xbox.

Kyle Glanville, in the short time I’ve known you, and even shorter that I’ve worked with you, I have realised just how great the job of a barista can be once we understand it as something beyond just pulling shots. You’re younger than me, and I hate you for it, because you represent so much of what a barista needs to become. You will be a great World Barista Champion.

Deaton Pigot. You are one of my closest friends and I love you……… I love to think of how we dreamed of working with the World’s best coffees and now we are. You are one of the hardest workers I know for your age, and your approach to coffee encompasses the kind of willingness to learn that we could all learn from. The onus is on you to surprise me in London now. 

John Ermacoff & Chris Baca. The Anfim Super Caimano played a huge role in my performance, and I’m not sure if I would have employed the same technique in Copenhagen had I not seen it tried and proven elsewhere first. Baca, your performance at the WBC was great, and I will insist you make that sig drink for me some day. So I just wanted to say thank you for both having the innovation that I then sorta stole. I look forward to meeting you soon John, Baca,… I’m good for a while. 

Brad Ford, Alistair Durie, Aaron de Lazzer, Robert Goble & Les Kuan; You are the people that cemented my love for coffee when I came out to Vancouver. You showed me what was possible, what was wrong, and the method to fixing it. You showed me great nights, a lot of laughs and very tasty coffee. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to sum up just how much I learned that summer, but know that I’ll never forget it and will always call you friends. Oh and Les, I still owe you some money.

Avonmore; I wasn’t overly vocal about this as I’m not sure its proper for a performance, but Avonmore, an Irish Dairy used by Dublin’s best cafes, were a huge help with preparing for the WBC. They sent milk over weekly for me to practice with in London and even practiced sending milk to Copenhagen. I was delighted to use the milk on stage too, both for its quality and though I’m not overly patriotic, because it was Irish. I’ve always enjoyed there milk growing up, and really do need to post about the farm trip I did with James that they hosted. 

Bea Vo: I would have made a fool of myself up there, or at least made more of a fool of myself, had you not been so very kind and helpful. I owe so much of my success to your ideas and generosity and will feel forever indebted to you. Thank you so much for the late nights and awkward hours where you gave me your precious time, and for making awesome red velvets.

Karl Purdy: your feedback and advice has been invaluable over the last few years. I have really enjoyed working with you recently and look forward to maintaining that relationship in the future. I hope I can adopt a fraction of your savvy approach to coffee in my own career, and look forward to our lunch in Mint whenever we manage to find the time.

Cindy Chang and Michelle Campbell; you are both such endearing people, who made life so comfortable for all the competitors and made sure we were always being looked after. Thank you so much for your tireless work that made Copenhagen such an enjoyable setting to share our craft. 

Mam & Dad; thank you so much for helping me out on so many occasions and making sure I always had everything I needed like pets, car insurance and laptops. You made me who I am today. If it wasn’t for the two of you, I would never have been successful in the competition, and probably wouldn’t have achieved much else in life either.

Chris & Ail, thank you for having such great taste in music and letting me appear to be the one who discovered them all. You truly are siblings, and have wonderful friends who have hair. Thank you for being around in my youth and for never calling me overweight. You never made me feel silly about being into coffee, even though being into coffee is ridiculous. Thank you both so very much.

Graham: Thank you for everything. Without you I would have never gotten through the last year. Your level of support and alluring scent have meant more to me than you’ll ever know. You are in the foo fighters.

Baristas I’ve met; I want to say I’ve been inspired by you all, but really I just stole all your techniques and put them together. That said, I think so many of you are just lovely and if theres only one thing I’d love to get out of this year, beyond a gs3 and compak in my apartment, is the chance to meet new people and connect with old ones. To clarify, by old ones I mean old friends, not the elderly. I’m happy to stay well clear of the elderly for a while. (Deaton I mean you)

The weirdest thing about the competition for me was the sense that I hadn’t changed once they called out my name. I didn’t suddenly feel I pulled incredible shots every time, or more importantly that I was the Worlds Best Barista. I wanted to tell everyone just how easily one of the other 51 competitors could be holding this trophy and how many great ambassadors for our craft were in the room. I 

I understand the responsibility of my new role, and will do my best to do well by you all. I really enjoyed Copenhagen, the show, the people and even being on stage- though more so in the finals. The experience of the few days really deserves a post of its own, I’ll try give details on how the performance took shape, and on the challenges and slip ups experienced in Copenhagen.

I thought it may be fun to share some of my goals for the next year; now that my ego has swelled to such mammoth proportions, I feel nothings impossible.

So this year, I want to;

• get to origin for the first time
• tame a tiger
• invent a sauce
• learn to surf
• visit Melbourne
• treat Jenny to dinner a lot more often
• build a new home for this blog
• touch my toes standing up
• get over my hate of sweetcorn
• get an i phone
• open a coffee bar 

So I’ve finally gotten serious.

Tonight I started competition routines again. My signature drink is still being built, and at great cost, but should be ready by next week. (customs in Turkmenistan are a nightmare) But I’m back doing capps competition style, which, for me is hotter than I normally like them. We’ve set up the roastery so it resembles the WBC stage of Tokyo last year, even including the backstage machines. Theres still a need for some grumpy stage hands, uber competitive baristas, and pompous ex champs - (though James admittedly does a good job).

I’m enjoying identifying problem areas but not looking forward to losing sleep over them. I like getting familiar with cups and cloths and other items, but I worry about getting sick of my comp music too soon. This may change over time. Speaking of music, one song you should all be listening to is White Winter Hymnal by Fleet Foxes, my sister suggested it for competition but it lacks the slap stick style I wanna get across.

No doubt as the competition gets closer and the worst part of it becomes more imminent, (logistics) I’ll start to wish I’d started preparing earlier. But if theres one thing in my performance I wanna achieve, its a genuine character. And if I’m being genuine, then it should be difficult to understand, funny to look at but also tasty.

Those of you who don’t check the square mile holding page each day, (we can see you), might not have noticed the change. We’ll call it a teaser. Not that this blog will ever be Square Mile centered.

I suppose I should put a picture in to pretty the post up;

The Square Mile Coffee Sample Roaster is alive and kicking, and so today, the day after Anette roasted seemingly hundreds of samples, we tasted whats out there. It feels so good to get cupping again, though as we set up our 5th flight( I say we, James and Anette are doing it as I’m clearly typing this), I’m quickly learning about the fatigue from trying to concentrate. This may lead you to think that I rarely concentrate and you’d be right. If anything you should interpret this as a sign of how seriously I take coffee.

I’m working on a brand new signature drink right now, which obviously I’ll tell you nothing about. I don’t think any fellow competitors will steal any ideas, nor do I think they’d want to, but it’ll be more impressive if I reveal it in Copenhagen. (Translated, its nowhere near finished yet)

I do however know what espresso cups I’l be using, what shirt I’ll be wearing, what level of trimmed beard and what milk (after relying on last year’s WBC country’s milk, I’ve decided to go with the more trustworthy and quite tasty Irish Brand of Avonmore).

I’m delighted at Kyle’s success in the US, and look forward to kicking his prep table over backstage. 

I’m working on a new latte art design that I think hasn’t been done before, but then I’m not sure how well this particular person’s face is known.

Its quite challenging to think up new ideas, and I know I definitely don’t wanna etch. I think etching is clever, but I like latte art thats quick and doesn’t interfere with the drink once the cup’s filled up.

Here are my macchiato practice so far;

Also, you may find this video fun. I really like Garrison Keillor, and Prairie Home Companion. 

But yeah, practice sucks.

I’m sure you’re all glued to the USBC blog this week, but you may find this fun;

I’ve just moved into my new place, which has no internet, so I haven’t been able to stay on top of things in Minneapolis. But I just wanna say how delighted I am to see the LA crew do so well, particularly Nick and Kyle. 

You’re all winners, except for those of you who didn’t win, in which case, well you know what you are then.

Things have been a bit up in the air recently which has served as a distraction from beginning my preparation for Copenhagen. I won’t bore you with what the things were, but I’ll ask you a quick question instead.  

I saw some pics recently of David Makin (a lovely chap) winning a competition in Australia and was very impressed with the art he managed in his capps.  I was bothered by my drop in quality on the day for the irish and think now that my capps are my weakest area.  

This is a picture of a rosetta poured recently in the 5 oz cappuccino cups I used in the Irish and will be using in the Worlds. Theres things I like and don’t like about the pour, but I’d love some feedback from any competitors and judges out there. 

I think I’ll do this now and again. I was temped to start a seperate blog, but I wouldn’t have enough content for it, so instead I’ll subject you lot to it now and again.

Though it wasn’t till three years into my music degree that I realised coffee promised more, I do still get a lot from music. I like to think my taste is quite varied, so heres a clip of something I think is just great great great. My mother put me onto Norma Waterson and my father loves Martin Carthy. Who doesn’t love richard thompson so I threw another one just of him in. 

The sound quality isn’t bad for youtube but could be better.  The next time I do this it will be a different style of music. Oh, and those of you in NY, my brother will be in town on wednesday for a week, and has a list of cafes, so watch out. As my childhood alias given to me by my dad was the flyingthud, my brother’s was the human mess. Please call him so should you see him.

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.

Interesting to see an article like this in the Guardian. It wasn’t nearly as ill informed as I expected and though I’m not too chirpy about his conclusion, I liked how much he covered without, I hope, becoming too tricky to assimilate for non coffee folk.  

I hate quick posts so I guess I should say something else while I’m here.  LA was great. I loved catching up with everyone and seeing how Intelligentsia Silverlake is progressing.  We wondered if it was the busiest quality focused cafe in the World, certainly I’ve never visited one as busy, even Ritual in San Francisco. The interior and exterior are just beautiful and I’m not sure if it’d work as well in any other neighborhood. I know they’ve plans to open thirty four more cafes in LA and it will be interesting to see how they adapt their image to each neighborhood, a luxury bigger chains don’t really get to practice.  But back to silverlake,I loved the visibility of the baristas at work and it was a pleasure to watch each of them employ the same solid technique yet each with their own style. 

It was nice too to taste Black Cat made by those more familiar with it. We were lucky enough to taste it when Intelligentsia sponsored our Barista Party during this years UKBC, and I remember James and I enjoying its new, cleaner profile. I like how they’ve managed to make it that bit more articulate without losing that soft, deep, chocolate its known so well for. To be completely honest I suppose, the trip had no stand out coffee moments, but rather everything was really good. Does that make sense? Probably the best thing I tasted was Kyle Glanville’s signature drink. I won’t give anything away so close to the WRBC, but all I’ll say is feathers. 

I spent my last morning sitting on the back bar of the cafe, possibly for the best part of 4 hours. This time was spent drinking coffee, watching the baristas, and spotting celebrities ( nearly spluttered my zirikana all over my macbook when Sylar from Heroes walked in). The last hour or so consisted of learning about various company takeovers in the industry from a well informed, if a little infected at the time blogger called Tony.  Regarding clover, I’ll keep my opinions to myself, which I know is a little mean, especially considering how amazing they are, but I’m horrible, and you should know that by now.

The only other cafes I got to visit on the trip were Choke- the moterbike/funky espresso bar, and La Mill, the super trendy, super plush, lovely staff, poor in the cup newcomer to Silverlake. Choke was so different to anything I’ve ever seen before, I’m not really sure what to say. There are photos, just take a look.

La Mill was an odd one, very not silverlake. I drove by it first of all and hated it. I went in wanting to hate it, but kinda liked it. I especially kinda liked the two red clovers they had. The equipment on display in general was stunning; hario vac-pots, eva solos, fb80s, afore mentioned clovers, roburs, chemexes, hario water glass, and so so many staff. The menu is sufficiently wordy for the prices of the coffees, and our waitress was excellent at explaining how the vac pot worked. There was an awkward moment when I inquired how long they’ve been adding jelly to the coffee and donut drink they serve and the waitress asked when I’d last had it,- the last time being when James made it for the 2007 UKBC, and who was never asked if he minded them using it. I just said a friend made it for me.

Sadly, none of the drinks I tasted at La Mill were good. They all seemed more or less well brewed, but they just didn’t work in the cup. This was the experience of two trips, so please don’t think I just wanna be a hater, I’m just not street enough. In total, I tasted a Kenya they carried off a vac pot, an espresso, two cappuccinos, and their coffee & donut & jelly. None were great but I have to say, the people there, bar 1 guy, were so friendly, capable, and well informed, I’ll be sure to visit them again when I’m back in town.

OK, this wasn’t meant to be a long post. So just one last thing, I was joking about intelly wanting to open 34 new cafes in LA, but I would imagine more are in the pipeline.

(This is a very very long post, and seems to be all about me, so I apologise in advance) First of all, I’d like to say thanks for all the kind words people have left in the comments, texts and voice-mails from Vancouver.  It was lovely to wake up this morning and read through them as I assimilated the events of the last few days and indeed weeks.  It seems so long ago now when I decided I’d enter this year, and though I did say it here in November, I remember making the decision back in Tokyo.

Working with James and Anette in preparation for the UKBC and subsequently Tokyo gave me a sense of what competition could be; something different to the template performances often seen.  I never felt there was enough room for variety in the comp format and whilst always believing it was a great thing for promoting quality coffee, I had more or less figured it wasn’t something I needed to get into. Needless to say Tokyo changed that perception.  

Watching how James managed innovation in unlikely areas and managed to tick the boxes without conforming, made me take a second look at the whole thing and find new enjoyment in it.  To clarify, the standard of the competitors in Tokyo was outstanding, and it was clear just how much work and effort went into so many of the performances. I’d never suggest otherwise. My point is more that before working with James and seeing him perform, I didn’t think it was possibly to bring something new or truly fresh to such a rigid format.

So following Tokyo, I had the opportunity to judges the Canadian Finals in Toronto.  This kind of terrified and further inspired me at the same time.  Watching Mike Yung deliver such a polished, controlled and indeed tasty performance made me realise again how much work competing would require. Yet at the same time, I remember loving the simplicity of some drinks, especially Nick Brown’s cookie macchiato. But more importantly, judging gave great insight on what sort of things judges respond to in a competitor, both in a positive and negative sense.

Around this same time I was helping a friend develop a routine for competition that due to work commitments and an untimely cold, he never got to see through. This was the first time I heard about the idea of malt being used in a signature drink. I won’t give too much details about it, but it involved an infusion of crystal malt, an incredibly aromatic and caramel like grain that worked wonderfully with coffee. It appealed to me immediately as I’ve never liked the idea of using flavours too crazy for signature drinks, and malt was a character I’ve often found in cupping.  By this time I was also involved in Square Mile and hoped to use our coffee in the Irish but with travel commitments and the roastery location proving a little elusive in those early days, I looked to other avenues for some great coffee; I looked north in a sort of nordic way.  

The second I thought of using Coffee Collective’s coffee, the more obvious an idea it seemed. I knew the guys already, particularly Klaus, and James had great things to say about their espresso blend, so without even tasting the stuff, I rang Klaus and asked would he help me out. At first he swore loudly and hung up the phone, but when I rang back a few moments later, he seemed keen and what followed was a giddy 20 minutes of how we’d discuss the logistics of getting it to me and providing me with green samples, and separate bags of the blend.  It was a few weeks later when I finally got to taste the coffee off our synesso in the roastery, and was thrilled to find it so tasty. If you recall, I’m a little bit of a sceptic when it comes to espresso, as usually its rubbish. I had said that I’d only truly enjoyed around 7 shots. Well since playing around extensively with Coffee Collective’s House Blend, I can honestly say I’ve had around 15 more beautiful shots. I never thought so much acidity could be articulated in an espresso without ever being sour or too snappy. It was clean, it was round, and practice became less tormenting every time I’d grind a shot and smell the tropical fruit from the adado. I don’t think any other coffee would have worked so well for me or helped win it for me.

I was working on a few different ideas for the signature drink over Christmas, one I won’t mention yet as I’m hoping to go back to it for the Worlds and another with oats which just wasn’t working. I remembered the malt idea and approached my friend to see if it was ok to use it. He had no problem with it, but when I finally found someone who could provide me with the stuff, (seems there are feck all breweries in Dublin that answer the phone, and despite one of the biggest malt suppliers in the World, none of the big companies seemed keen on sending a couple of hundred grams of malt to some guy in a coffee competition), I ended up using a different type of grain, chocolate malt.  I forget where, but I read this was used in making Guinness and when I started playing with it, we found it infused faster than the crystal malt and gave good body and aromatics which enhanced the warmer, toastier notes in the coffee and complimented the fruit from the yirgacheffe.Further inspiration came from a tiny cafe in New York called Abraco. Some of you will already know of this place, as a certain Dan Griffin used to work there before he got all big and famous with el beit. Well, besides the tasty bites, and charming interior, the thing that stuck with me at Abraco was the almond milk cortado. Jenny ordered one as Dan explained what it was. It was nice to see Jamie the owner pour art with it, and the taste and texture sorta stuck in my mind.

So by the end of January, I had a number of things sorted, I knew what coffee I was using, had two interesting ingredients to design a signature drink around, had sourced cups and stuff, and despite a few small bits, had decided to use most of James’ WBC table settings (more out a money saving motive than an attempt to standardise Square Mile Competition gear). I spent many hours looking at what grinder would work best, but two weeks before the competition, I realised I’d gotten very used to James’ WBC Spec Compak k 10, and really couldn’t fault it. I really enjoy it, its fast and the dosing action is lovely, though perhaps not as clean as the anfims if I remember correctly.February was a busy month with some work in Spain and then a busy week at Hotelympia where I gave some talks and we hosted a party for the competitors for the UKBC at our roastery. Immeaditely after that, I got stuck into full time practice for the competition. It was around this time that I asked Tim Styles to come on board and be my coach for the competition. This would turn out to be a master stroke as I have doubt that without his help I would have not been successful. It was interesting too as Tim had very little experience in competition, so James and I were able to tell him how he should criticise me, what he should look for, and every trick we knew about competition. James and Anette’s schedule was such that they couldn’t help me prepare as much as we’d have liked but the few hours I did spend with them proved priceless, especially one day in particular with me getting defensive and snappy with James about the very same things I gave him crap for in training for Tokyo.  

Tim has become a great friend, his tireless support and quick understanding of what I needed from him were a key part in my good fortune in the competition. The other rock in all this was of course Jenny. I’m not sure if I can ever repay her for all the weekends and mornings abroad shes given up for coffee, or more importantly my romance with it. She is selflessness defined and I’d be lost without her. Thank you hun, for letting me do what I want to do and always supporting me.

I’ve already posted about the semis, so I guess I’ll just tell you how I made the sig drink and how the finals went. I start off the performance by making the almond milk on the judges table,  basically hot water and almonds, left to steep in an ibrik (ibrik not essential just a nice touch I thought). After serving the capps, I brewed 4 espressos which went into a cream whipper. Next step was straining the almond milk; I did this through some muslin into a chemex, but not before adding 7 grams of the chocolate malt, and 6 grams of soft brown sugar. Once strained, I removed the muslin, and poured the infusion in with the espressos and charged her up. The more I think about it the more I feel a foam was a boring idea, but it did fuse the flavours together and it did taste good, which I’ve always felt should rate higher. I have no problem with accusations of simplicity if it was tasty and balanced. That said, I hope to use elements of this drink for the WBC and accept it needs to be ‘more’ in lots of ways. OK, still with me? The finals went a lot better for me, I felt more relaxed, and felt my prep went a lot better than the day before. I didn’t get to see to much of the other competitors as James said it was a bad idea, and I was more concerned with double checking my equipment off three different lists for the third time.

So again, I apologise if this seems a little self centered but I didn’t see enough of anyone else to really comment. Oh but again, Fan from Insomnia was so lovely and charming,(from what I could hear on the intercom at least) and clearly competition savvy that it was no surprise he came such a close 2nd place.My performance started off well till about 40 seconds in when the lid of the eva solo I was pouring water from fell into the first judges water glass. Now not only did I not have a glass for the head judge, I also didn’t have any spares. Panic set in for a moment, I thought of the points I’d lose for each drink I’d serve her without accompanying water so i just grabbed the glass, served the other judges, told her I’d look after her in a moment, poured it into the drip tray, and brought it back clean with the espressos and topped it up. I didn’t like how I disposed of the water but I hadn’t much choice and I think the judges liked how my routine wasn’t thrown wayward by the accident.My shots were a little fast all day, but I think the blend handles that ok. I knew it didn’t like being pulled anyway tight which was what happened in the finals so I was quite happy to have an average shot time of 23, but not happy that I cut my second capp shots at 19. I found it very difficult adjusting to the fb70s after weeks of training off the synesso with the slower flow rate. I hated that moment where I’d engage the pump and rush to get the cups under in time, as opposed to the relaxed wipe of the drip tray I’d rehearsed.The delay with the water glass seemed to stick with me right till the end where I was pouring the last sig drink on the table with 10 seconds to go.I remember feeling good about it afterwards but at the same time I was convinced the tech judges noticed how the strength of my settling knock of the pf changed throughout.

Silly suspicions like that plagued my mind right up until they announced the winner.I am honored to have the opportunity to represent my country in three different competitions. It wasn’t the goal to win all three, and I’m slightly daunted by the prospect especially as I hear some will be on the same day. Again, and I’m sorry to labour this point, but if it wasn’t for the coffee, the ideas I picked up from friends and cafes, the training with and from James and Anette, the support of friends and family, the experience of Tokyo, watching so many great baristas, Tim Styles and my girlfriend Jen, I wouldn’t even have competed never mind win. Thank you so much.