WBC 2010 – a few thoughts

(for photos, check the previous post)

I didn’t really know what to expect from my first WBC. The main reason for my reasonably inconvinient trip to London with Ryanair wasn’t the WBC competition itself but all the coffee people who would gather there. Although you can learn a lot by just watching world’s top baristas pulling shots, pouring cappuccinos and mixing sig’s I’ve noticed that the best way to learn, at least for me, is to chat with fellow coffee aficinados. And that’s what I was after.

Probably the greatest thing was to meet so many renowned coffee professinals and amazing baristas such as James Hoffmann and Anette Moldvaer from one of my favourite roasteries, Square Mile Coffee, Tim Wendelboe, Gwilym Davies (to whom I was honoured to offer a beer, such a nice chap) and M’lissa Owens, just to mention a few. I understand that they, of course, wanted to meet better-known coffee people and friends who they don’t often meet but I was really amazed and flattered by the fact that they had time to chat with me also, a beginner barista from Finland.

I might have said this before, but this friendly, genuine and open atmosphere is one of the things I love most in this “industry”. I think that coffee is all about sharing, learning and enjoying together – things that this event fairly well encouraged.

The competition was just as great as I had expected, it was great seeing all those skilled baristas performing after rigorous training. I tried to absorb and note details, ideas and possibilites for my own preformance to due next year (in the national competition, to begin with).

London being, in my opinion, the world’s coffee capital and forerunner of coffee community activities (what a term) such as the UBF, was a cafe tour a must. Coffee Kids’ coffee map was a great help and full of nice spots. The result after a few kilometres of walking: a really nice cup of syphon, a single origin espresso tasting like greenish bananas (a positive note) and some alright shots but also a few disappointments. I really couldn’t understand why nearly all the coffee places featured in the coffee map closed at 6.00 pm, some even earlier. It would have made sense to lenghten the opening times a little when the city is full of coffee people bound to Olympia during the day.

The other slight disappointment was the much-hyped Square Mile’s Penny University. Understandably it was the competition week and the guys, Tim Styles and someone else who I didn’t recognise, were tired but still. This is the flagship store/coffee bar of one of world’s best roasteries. If somewhere, here I expected to get amazing V60 and mind-blowing syphon. The cup was, alas, not so great. I know it’s not fair to go into details and analyse the coffees and their flaws – every barista have their bad days and I can belive it’s very, very difficult to keep the coffee consistent all day long. Nonetheless, it seems that many others had great coffee experiences there and that’s great.

Overall, this trip was perhaps the best one I’ve ever had. So many lovely new people, great coffee, nice parties (at the SCAE Barista Party someone gave my friend some 50-60 drink tickets, I got 15 of them…) and good food. My first real inside view in to the speciality coffee industry only made me think one thing – this is what I really want to do for living!