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 consideration, prep and thinking that is going in to my 15 minutes on stage.

Signature Drinks

I did a post about signature beverages last year that generated a bit of conversation, which was good. I don’t want to repeat what I wrote last year, so I will write more on development of my drink(s) this year.

All to often the signature drink can be the downfall of a competitor. In recent years the bar in terms of creativity and appearance has been raised so high, that sometimes a barista will find themselves focusing entirely on quirky twists and gimmicks in order to score points. If you want to win the UKBC I believe that you need to produce a signature drink that tastes ‘very good’, but I don’t believe that it is essential for it to be ground breaking in terms of technicality, or looks.

Let’s take a look at this years WBC score sheet…

 Of the three kinds of drink that you need to make, the scoring for sig drinks is the most simple and logical.

Well explained and presented – Score out of 6

This is the only drink where you actually get scored for your ‘chat’ as such, so I will be talking the judges through the drink from start to finish. In my mind, if I can give the judges six solid pieces of information about my drink i’ll consider myself halfway to the full 6 points. Here are a few ideas: Why I created it, what ingredients I have used, how I have put it together, how the drink should taste/feel (links in to Taste balance), when the drink should/could be consumed, , how the drink should be consumed, how the drink links back to coffee, why I have chosen a particular coffee to use in the drink, why I did it this way and not another way.

Appealing Look - Score out of 6

I personally think that clean, simple crockery can go a long way towards getting you a 5 for this score. I am a firm believer of ‘letting the drink do the talking’, this situation is an exception, but I have seen displays that I would consider to be unnecessary and over the top. In the notes we can see that judges will be looking for elegance, cleanliness and how we use the cup/glass.

Elegance unfortunately has a price tag attached to it. In the past I have seen some beautiful glassware and crockery that in my mind tick ‘elegance’ boxes, if you can afford the best then I do think it will stand you in better stead.

Cleanliness should be an obvious one, but by using lots of white in your setup things can appear to be even cleaner than a very clean brown setup for instance. It goes without saying that polishing glassware is a must, I was once told by a judge that if he didn’t deem something to look brand new then points would be lost.

Usage of cups/glasses is relevant in the way that you handle your vessel and how you decide to serve your drink, the trick here is not to let form rule over function. Giving the judges the best possible experience of your drink and engineering they way it is consumed is vital.

Creativity – Score out of 6

If creativity were a woman, she would be laughing about how we fuss over her, with our sleepless liquid nitrogen filled nights and manic gelatin encumbered days. Designing a drink that is both creative and tasty is a very tough. My advice for anyone who is struggling, is to aim for the area that scores you more points… (taste) 

Taste Balance – Score out of 24

The rules as far as taste balance go are simple.

• Don’t overcomplicate things by using ingredients that will never be identified in the flavour.
• Make sure your drink tastes of coffee.
• Use a good espresso extraction as your base.
• Make sure you use a full shot of espresso in every drink.
• Remember to describe in detail the flavour and experience of your drink.

I’m going to be using a variation of my UKBC 2008 signature drink. I would quite happily show you a picture of it, but I don’t have the glasses yet so there’s not a lot of point! Suffice to say that it looks like mini Irish coffee.

The drink comes in two parts. The base is espresso added to a reduction of almond flour, honey, nutmeg and orange zest. The whipped cream on top has been steeped in ground wall nuts and vanilla sugar. Once again it goes along the lines of a liquid coffee cake, but I have made a few alterations to the taste, serving, ingredients and on stage prep.

The thing that I like about the taste balance of my drink is that over the course of 20sec every ingredient present in the drink can be perceived and they work in harmony together. 

Improvements over last year:

• The drink is smaller so expect a bigger coffee taste.
• The glass is more suitable to drink from so expect a better experience.
• The presentation of the drink is more simple so expect a quicker turn-around.
• The ingredients are more balanced so expect better scores for taste.

That’s about it folks. I will probably do one more UKBC: Transparent post in a few days just covering my preparation of equipment and setup. Thanks for taking the time to read this and if you have any pointers, questions or comments, just leave them below.

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