The Wild Drink Blog

I wnt up to Caffe Culture at the Olympia yesterday with the boys from Origin.

It was an early start but we made good time up to London and arrived at the show at about 11.30. I hadn’t been to this show before and I kind of expected a version of the SW EXPO but only coffee/cafe related, which pretty much summed it up. The show was easy to get around, not to crowded and there were some nice people there some of which are big faces in the coffee world.

Phil and I wandered for a while trying a few shots at various stands including Delacorte & La Spaziale, both of which were very nice indeed. There were various seminars going on on subjects such as maximising profits on your cafe to pouring perfect latte art. I tried to sign up for workshop presented by Jim Hoffman (UKBC winnner) on advanced barista skills but the workshop was unsuprisingly already full… until they opened up another one and I managed to jump on that!

Jim’s workshop was really informative, I know from experience that training folks at varied levels is a really hard task, but the workshop was just the right level for me. We explored more of the in depth stuff going on when shot is extracted including flavour profile changes relevant to extraction time, tamping & dosing techniques and water pressure. The ABS workshop was the highlight of the show for me, glad I forked out the £25 because I was sceptical before!

Moving on we chated with guys from a few different coffee companys and it was interesting to get a deeper insight into the trade from the perspective of suppliers from around the country/world. Much fun was had at the illy stand….

I’ll definately go back next year, plus i’ll sign up to more workshops. I’d have loved to have done the advanced cupping which Stewart Hargie from Masteroast was doing, there was also a tips and tricks workshop for UKBC by Se Gorman (who I had a quick chat with) which would have been good to see but it looks like i’m going to have to enter the competition without those pearls of wisdom!