With the first round heats of the UKBC approaching very quickly, competitors will be thinking a lot about their routines. I competed last year and came 9th, this year I will be hoping to improve on that, despite my situation being rather different. My experiences last year will prove invaluable this year as I prepare for my own heat on 3rd February, I thought it would be nice to share with you all of the considerations, prep and thinking that is going in to my 15 minutes on stage.

Also make sure you check out my other UKBC Transparent posts. clue: They’re listed in related posts in the sidebar…

Technical

There have been a few changes to the technical scoring this year, with it only counting for 18% of your total mark as opposed to a massive 35% last year. Last year I averaged 68.5 in my heats and 56.5 in the semi-final, that would have meant a total difference of 48pts (quite a lot), this year it would only be 24pts. I wont go on too much about how the score sheet used to be, but I do think it is slightly relevant as it could give an indication as to how we focus on our routines this year.

• The six points (24 in total) for understands grinder have been replaced by a score for station management (12 in total).
• Technical judges no longer score for a visually correct espresso base on cappuccinos and signature drinks.
• Extraction time now needs to be within a 3 second variance on all drinks, but not across all drinks.
• The two technical judges scores are simply added to the sensory scores. They used to be averaged and multiplied by four.

The final point ultimately means that every score on your technical sheet is worth half of what it was last year. I think that the bar was raised once again in last years final, competitors had studied the score sheets and they were ticking lots of boxes, particularly in the technical areas. By adding more value to sensory scoring this year the competition places more emphasis on tasty drinks and less on points that most people were achieving.

Having said all of that, the best competitors will be scoring well on technical so to be in with a chance we will need to match those scores, let’s start by looking at the top of the sheet.

I guess that this is one of those scores that gets a bit overlooked, as it seems like such an obvious and simple thing to get right. As embarrassing as it is, the above image taken from my semi-final, is proof that getting your setup right is actually not that easy. Scoring 1pt on the tech score sheet equates to ‘Acceptable’, to be honest that was probably being generous!

The moral of the story is to practice your setup, or keep everything so simple that you have only a bare bones setup. I will be doing a bit of both, making both my judges table and my own working area a lot less cluttered, whilst doing a few practice setups too. One thing that I definitely got wrong in my semi final was to include too many little details that took a lot of time to organise and didn’t score me any points. This year there is a better opportunity for the judges to award me points if I include those little details, since the score sheets seem to be tailored more towards a judges overall feeling of the presentation.

If you can factor it in, I reckon allowing a minute at the end of your setup to judge yourself is a good idea. Remember, the detail in which the judges will examine your station is astonishing, the note above regarding the colours of my cloths is a testament to this.

Next let’s take a look at the technical scoring with regards to the espresso machine. I’ve included a sample of my Cappuccino scores from the heats, the marking for espresso and signature drinks have the same criteria, but the capps have a couple more…

Most of the above scores have a yes or no answers. This is great, because it means that you either get it right or wrong and in every case there is a good opportunity to achieve the former. For me, this is about developing  a mental check routine for each point and then practicing it until it becomes natural. Last year I had the advantage of working behind a bar and forcing myself to work as if I was being judged all of the time. After ironing out the bad habits and to a certain extent learning to do things that felt unnatural, I got to a point where I was able to tick all of the above boxes without having to think about it.

The two scores that are marked out of six (visually correct espresso is not in the new rules) are tough ones to score highly on in my opinion. How do you score 6pts for acceptable spill/waste? By not dropping a crumb of coffee and dosing perfectly every single time I suppose. The problem that arises there though, is that distributing coffee in the porta filter is much easier when you dose slightly more than required and the chuck the excess.

As far as consistency goes, my only advice is to once again practice until you feel like a robot, then practice a little more, as I understand it the judges will be looking for precise consistency in your movements whilst dosing and tamping. Think about whether you are using a grinder with a dosing chamber and how many times you pull the lever, tapping the PF to settle the coffee, stockfleth’s/east/west distribution, tamping pressure, polish twists etc. However you choose to dose and tamp – be sure to keep it consistent.

The first four points for milk are easy to achieve, but my personal temptation is to forfeit the points for a clean pitcher at the end, as I find it hard to steam small quantities of really good milk. Forfeiting will only cost me 2 points, but it could gain me 8 points (an extra 2 per sensory judge)  for the texture of my drinks.

As I mentioned in the espresso post, extraction times are best regulated according to the look and ‘feel’of the extraction. In previous years points were awarded for extraction times within the 20-30sec zone, now the shots for each drink need only to be within a 3 second variance of each other. Initially this might sound like a bigger ask, from 10sec down to 3sec, but it does allow for greater flexibility in your extractions since some coffees work better as a 30sec shot and some as 20sec. Not an easy point to hit and I wouldn’t be surprised to see some competitors dosing both porta filters at the same time and extracting simultaneously – at least on the espressos.

Finally, let’s take a look at the bottom of the score sheet.

My score from the finals indicates that the working area was probably a bit trashed when I finished 24 seconds over time! A lot of folks allow themselves 30 seconds at the end to clear everything up, but it makes much more sense to simply clear up as you go. If ever you see videos from the WBC you’ll notice that after serving their final drinks the baristas usually finish quite promptly, this is because they have done all of the clearing up during the course of their presentations. The word on the street is that the shelf space usually available to throw used equipment onto will no longer be available. Instead judges will be looking for a working space which could in theory be used to repeat the presentation.

The final point to make is with regard to running over time. My advice? A second or two is fine if it results in a higher score on your final drinks, but in my opinion, running over time should be avoided at nearly any cost. Not only will it cost you a point per second, but in all likelihood you will also rush your final drinks and lose points from the sensory judges too. There is no guaranteed preventative measure that can be taken, but practice will certainly help, and practicing mistakes will stand you in an even better stead.

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