The Wild Drink Blog

Hi Tristan! Are you saying that you haven’t had your 15 minutes preparation time? Or others had more? That’s pretty bad!

Other than that, I’d love to have a Barista Party here in Germany, but alas I think it won’t happen. Perhaps I can do something to raise the interest in it, but all too often I only get long faces when I talk coffee. Even in this ‘industry’.

I got my 15 minutes, can’t grumble about that. Others did get a lot longer though.

Shame you can’t knock together a party in germany. We’re lucky to have a good group of people over here.

I think your comments are very valid, and it is frustrating that things didn’t run as smoothly as a lot of us would have liked.

Having been both sides, as well as having worked the roadshow and helped run regional events in the past I know a lot of people put a lot of work in and its a shame when the details let us down.

However there is a feeling amongst the organisers that we should always be working to improve the whole thing, from the judging to the stage areas to the stage management. One thing I will be pushing hard next year is WBC sized benches onstage just to bring us a little more into line. There really isn’t enough bench space right now, so hopefully that’ll be better next year.

Glad you enjoyed the party though, it was a good night I thought.

hello tristan
i too competed in the ukbc and got through to the semis, sadly not making the final 6 by 1/2 point!!
having taken a bit of time off from what has been an exhausting year preparing my set, i am starting to reflect on certain issues concerning the comp.
i realise a hell of a lot of work goes into the organisation of the comp, searching for new sites to host the heats, liasing with all the baristi about dates, publicity and so on. but to compete recquires even more so.i too am very lucky to have a wonderful boss who not only bank-rolled everything but supported me in training,having time off from my job(which didn’t always leave the other staff laughing!) and encouraged me hugely when all i wanted to do was tell everyone to ********!!! it has been a very emotional journey for myself as i imagine it has been for many others.
its just a pity that the professionalism with which we bring to these events is not matched by the efforts of the organisers.
knowing the amount of equipment each competitor has to have i was very disappointed with the space allocated to set out your stuff. a tiny tiny box room with table and floor space enough for 1 person,but with every man and his dog passing through while you try and set-up! it seems that there was more thought and floor space given to spectators, which was a waste as no-one was miked up!
another tiny room in which to wash all your pots with no hot water or soap. now this might seem trivial but if you had high hopes of getting to the final you wanted all your stuff to be spotless again.
i too had music and got very stressed after learning there was no sound system somthing you don’t need 20 mins before going on stage, i know music is not a requirement but with each comp standards are getting higher and more thought must be given to the competitors needs.
i could sit here and think of lots of issues to winge about and none of this is sour grapes, i’m proud of what i did, but if i were to compete again and having spoke to others who agree, big improvements need to be made, as ther would be no competition without us.
on a final note, i made a lot of new friends and hopefully will meet up with them all soon. we are passionate about what we do and long may it continue.

It’s a tough one.

The competition travels around the country, each venue is different and so I guess there wont always be the exact requirements to hand. I do hope though that this post has helped give some feedback to the organisers as to some of the requirements from a competitors point of view, it’s good that former competitors are getting more involved with the organisation and judging (James).

Maxine, you hit it on the head, it is disappointing to be let down after all that preparation. I hope you don’t mind, I edited your comment to lower case… it was hurting my eyes!

All that said… I am looking forward to next year!

Phew!
Lots of valid points.
I finished 19th overall and I am pleased with that. I do have reservations about the way the semi finals were set up.
I know the organisers have worked very hard putting all the events on, a nice bunch of people giving up a lot of their own time.
The solution for the future is to ring fence one of the sponsors fee for stage management and make the sponsor responsible. La Spaziale did it with the machines all over the UK and did a great job. Why not sponsor the whole set up? This will give the organisers/judges more time to concentrate on judging matters.
There were shortfalls with the set up. No chance for some competitors to play their music. I listened to 60 different albums over months to come up with 3 suitable tracks only to find out I could not play it, space was limited for setting up, the tables next to the coffee machines were too small, the lighting on the stage was poor. No mics for competitors which is a shame as more interaction with the audience is important if we are to retain their interest. A running order of the competitors and maybe their signature drink listed on a board so the public get more of an idea of what is happening.
This competition consumed me and my thoughts for months as it did others. It requires driven dedication so I was slightly underwhelmed with the set up.
My suggestion is for the SCAE to put the event management out to tender with potential sponsers.
I am still not sure if I will enter next year. If i worked even harder I dont think I could improve enough to get into the top 6.
Like everyone else I had a great time at the Barista party. Thanks to Mr and Mrs Square Mile Coffee.

I thought that it might be about time that I put a few thoughts down about this years UKBC. I have left it a while probably because I want to get it out of my system by writing it on the web but this way not many people will read it which suits me just fine.

This was my 4th year competing and I had high hopes for doing well. Over the years I had come to realise that the only way to do well in the competition is to practice, the more you put in the more you get out. There are a set of rules to follow and 15 minuets to prove yourself, I don’t want to start any argument about what type of barista the entrants are, (cafe barista, barista trainer, coffee sales man, home barista….) because at the end of the day we are all passionate about coffee which is the most important thing of all.

I thought the organisation of this years competition was a complete shambles, there were so many talented baristas there who had clearly put hours and hours of work in to be there only to be totally let down. The warm up areas were inadequate, the storage/clear down areas were pathetic the stage are was tiny, the sound system didn’t work, the competitors were not miked up basically it was a total disgrace. The last 3 previous years the facilities had been much better, what the fuck went wrong this time???? I thrive on presenting my coffee not only to the judges but also to the spectators this year all the spectators heard was a compeers view and jokes…

Before I comment about my performance I would like to give you (Tristan) my views on you performance. This was your first year and you definitely impressed a lot of people including me. I thought your biggest problem was you tried to do far to much, at the end of the day you only have 15 minuets to get ready and 15 minuets performance time and you clearly got behind right from the beginning (you didn’t even leave yourself enough time to pull a few practice shots on stage) and were unable to recover. I think you need to simplify your presentation and put all the extra effort in to making your simpler performance the best it can be. I know you felt disgruntled about other competitors having longer to get ready, I was one of them. But at the end of the day you got your 15 minuets if you were properly prepared that should have been enough.

My 15 minuets warm up time went tits up about 5 minuets in when I pulled my 1st shot, it was crap… suddenly I realised that the practice machine and the competition machine were calibrated differently (the water dispersion blocks on the warm up machine were 7 gram blocks and on the comp machine they were 8 gram blocks also the pump pressure on the warm up machine was set to 8 bar and the comp machine was running at 9 bar) so my shot times were totally screwed. I spent about 10 minutes re-setting my 2 grinders and then finally setting up I ran over the 15 minuets, not planned but required… I was lucky enough to get a few extra minutes I shouldn’t have needed them but………

I felt like I nailed my 15 minuets competition time, I could not have done a better job. I had practices for weeks and months I thought about every aspect, every move, every detail of every second….everything I touched I had a plan for where I put it down…… the coffee was amazing, better than any coffee I had produced for any competition before, the best coffee I have ever drunk. It was from some a world leading green bean supplier in America, it had been hand delivered from on of the most reputable coffee mills in Costa Rica and it was roasted by a very talented man at Masteroast.

Unfortunately the judges didn’t feel the same way. My score was lower than my heat where I had put minimal work in. It was lower than last years final… my score was shit…why???? Who can I blame? was it the espresso machine? probably not I have worked on them for years and know exactly how they work… you need 5 things to be perfect to make good espresso… a good person, a good machine, a good grinder, a good coffee and good water. During my 15 minutes I did not have all 5 things in place so I was either an unlucky barista or one not good enough to be a champion.

I feel better now after writing all this down. Congratulations Hugo and good luck to all baristas entering next years UKBC, not me I need a break!!!