First of all let me say that I was both surprised and relieved to win the South West heat.

I’ll tell you why in a minute, but  let me thank a few people before that… Laura – for helping me on the day, Mum – for helping me with the macaroons, Linda (Laura’s mum) – for being chief washer-up, Hugo & Sarah – for use of Relish for my practice sessions, Phil – for help on the day and for roasting my coffee!

It was weird tackling the competition this year as a so-called ‘home barista’. Without a machine to play on or an endless supply of milk and coffee to waste. I’ve only used a 2-group machine on about 4 occasions over the last 9 months and as I said to the judges, being a ‘micro-cafe’ does force you to focus on what you are brewing a little more, because it costs money to make mistakes!

Practice was tough and if i’m honest, I only did two complete run-throughs in preparation – not as many as I would have liked, but fortunately just about enough. It was also quite a solitary experience, I bounced ideas off myself and whereas last year I had the resources of a professional kitchen (complete with professional chefs), this year my own kitchen was the hub of operations.

There was a lot of snow on the first day of the competition and as a result of this, only half of the competitors eight competitors made it to Exeter. Watching barista competitions is not a great spectator sport, but the microphones this year did help that somewhat. I would also say that the backstage facilities were infinitely better than the finals last year. I saw the first competitor who I think was called Premysl, he was from Rick Stein’s restaurant and his chat with the judges looked good, but I think he may have gone up to 16 minutes in total? Unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to see much else as I was busy sorting out my own setup. Additionally I missed the entire second day of proceedings, which apparently was much better attended, I even missed the announcement of the winners because I had to work!

Anyway, just a quick bit about how my presentation went and how i’m going to improve for the final.

Espresso – Even though I somehow won best espresso I wasn’t overly enamored with the extraction on the day. It seems that my blend needs about 3 weeks to calm itself down after roasting.. can this be possible?

Cappuccino – I poured some pretty good art (for competition), but two of my capps were a bit on the milky side. Again extraction espresso was questionable.

Signature drink – Went quite well, though I would have liked the cream to float better, good feedback from the judges.

Overall feel – I said nearly everything that I wanted to, I was quite organised and precise throughout the set apart from the comedy moment where I had to run off the stage to get a bottle of syrup I had forgotten, then got tangled in my mic!

(setting up)

It is a nice feeling to have scored well (611, so I hear), but to still have plenty of room for improvement. I’m glad that the finals are only 4 weeks away as it doesn’t give me a chance to switch-off, so it’ll be full steam ahead from here on in. I’ll be perfecting my espresso blend next week, then finalising my signature drink and going over the routine again and again before the finals.

Well done to all of the other competitors, especially the first timers, including Jack who very nearly managed to pip me into first place. Also well done to Dale Harris for stepping in and compèring the event.

Oooh and somehow I ended up on ITV local news in the evening, a bit of added pressure as they filmed me pouring my cappuccinos!

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