A few of our Quills coffee charmers are on the eve of embarking on another great adventure. Tomorrow morning - Jesse Myers, Houston Miller and Michael Butterworth - will head to Durham, North Carolina for the Big Eastern regional coffee championship.
Michael will be competing in the Barista Competition. The competition website explains what he has been diligently preparing for the past several week...
In a 15-minute presentation, competitors prepare and serve three courses of espresso based beverages to a panel of four sensory judges, two technical judges and one head judge. Competitors strive for a harmonious balance of sweetness, bitterness, acidity, and aromatics. A signature beverage is a highly innovative, freestyle espresso-based beverage created by the barista for the competition.
Jesse & Houston will be competing in the Brewers Cup which centers around manual brewing. Again- according to the website...
Competitors are judged in two rounds by skilled coffee tasters. The first round is a blind tasting, the competitors all brew the same coffee on their chosen manual deceives. Those who advance to the second round will brew and present their chosen coffee to the judges’ panel.
This past Friday we set up a mock competition at our UofL store fit with all the toys, tests and meticulous judging they'll be facing this weekend. It was a lot of fun and a great success. Michael says, "After going through my routine 20+ times, I'm slightly less terrified than I was when I started. I thought the large crowd at the rehearsal would unnerve me, but I actually found it energizing." And Houston also found the trial competition very helpful: "Not feeling very prepared, the (largely improved) run-through helped me realize what I still needed to iron out and really helped me with getting feedback on my presentation"
And-of course-we've got a few pictures for you below (Thanks Darren!). Follow the guys on Twitter ( Michael, Houston, Jesse, Quills ) and wish them lots of luck!
Good friend and smarty-pants Jamie Tooill (former Quills barista - now works with Argo Sons) will also be competing in the Brewers Cup. Good luck Jamie!
