R. Willbur

My mind has been shifting from thinking about competition back to focusing on our store. That fueled by the conversations help during the conference, and I’ve got some ideas, realizations, and ambitions turning about.

There was a moment where I heard James Hoffmann mention that he had an idea for a grinder, but couldn’t find anyone to build it for him. Now, at first, my initial reaction (during the weekend) was why do we need a new grinder? We’ve got these epic Robur-e’s. What more do we need?

Then, I got back on a real bar… and was forced to come face to face with the problems I deal with daily. We make hundreds of drinks, and it’s an intensely difficult labor of love to keep those drinks tasting as delicious as possible. We fight heat from all directions… Especially, in our grinders. That’s when I realized that I tasted multiple espressos from different machine company booths… all with interesting textures and mouth-feels… and no one is addressing the actual problems that I have.

I’m wondering how many baristas would react to Hoffmann like I did? Where, without a solution in sight, we push the thought of an ideal grinder, with minimal heat retention, out of our heads. It seems that we’ve gotten so hooked on exploring the new (pressure profiling) that we’ve forgotten about the problems that have been plaguing us for years…

Don’t get me wrong… I’ve never experienced an espresso like Jeremy Summer, of Synesso, served me at their booth. But, I’ve got a fantastic machine. It makes incredible espresso from about 6AM till 10 AM. Then, a battle begins between fighting soaring temperatures in the grinder and the groups. As of now, the best solutions I can pursue is to obtain two robur-e’s and to switch grinders during the midday… Which, maybe some companies can afford, but that’s a difficult investment for a small cafe to make.

My shift, today, starts at 2PM. The morning rush will just be wrapping up, and I will immediately set to work evaluating the espresso. It will be good. But there will always be a part of me that is jealous of the opening crew and what they get to experience. Please, someone, make us all a grinder that will alleviate this!

I’ve been waiting for this week for a few years now. I’m in the Portland area as my brother is turning 21 today… It’s exciting  to have my only brother able to join me in my beer-loving-expeditions across this fantastic city. We plan on grabbing some pizza tonight, and then moving over to the beloved Horse Brass Pub. Needless to say, I’m ecstatic.

To be honest, my thoughts on coffee here in Portland, have been somewhat jaded for awhile. In recent years, it’s seemed monotonous. The same blend from the same roaster with the same milk, everywhere.

However, the last years has really diversified the city scene. I have had several coffees from several roasters, and I’m impressed. My day, today, started at the new BARISTA! The soft opening process and training to open a store is something I learned to appreciated as I helped open the coffee bar I work out of… and it was fun and interesting to watch another staff going through it this morning. I had some fantastic coffee in a beautiful space, so how could my day go wrong from there?

Both today and yesterday, I visited the recently opened Sterling Coffee Roasters in NW Portland. Roasting everything on a one pound, San Franciscan, Sterling served espresso off a two-group Synesso. Both press coffee and Clever brewer coffee are offered. Yesterday, I had some Sumatra Blue Batak as espresso and today I tasted a Costa Rica. The space is completely outdoors, baristas dressed to the nines, and the surrounding neighborhood is gorgeous on a clear day. Espresso outdoors never came with such a great experience before.

I’m sure I’ll be tasting more coffee as I venture around this city, but for now, I’m just super grateful to be around my family and to have a break in the middle of (what is gearing up to be) the most intense barista competition season to date.

Go here…

This past weekend is still almost too much of a blur to recap. However, it sure felt good. Until yesterday, I spent much of the year battling expectations put on myself, after being a 2009 USBC finalist. It wasn’t until I became a WRBC finalist that I was able accept that it’s 2010 and what happened last year is already being forgotten. None the less, I told myself I would stop competing the day I stopped getting better, and I’d much rather hang it up than put on a performance where I’m not doing the best I possibly can.

Thus was the battle I faced after round one of the Western. I was competitor number one… Leaving me no other competitors performance to simply enjoy or decompress to before having to go out and deliver something that had to be so memorable it would keep me in the top six for the rest of the first round. I’ve opened finals sets, but an entire 30-competitor event was a bit more daunting…

So, truth be told, things that had me worried…

1. Cappuccinos. Nerves are not an issue. Adrenaline, however, can make the body shake, and I’ve been struggling with this all year, and was yet to regain the confidence to pour anything all that great. I shook my way into some traditional monks-heads, but I know that I am better than just delivering that.

2. Butane Burner. If you caught my performance,  you may have heard my signature beverage ingredients and thought, “Holy hell that’s a lot of citrus.” Which, it was… I used pineapple, grapefruit, navel orange, and meyer lemon juice. All cooked together with some prunes and dark muskavato sugar. The key was that I only used 15 liquid grams of each… and 5 of the lemon. The problem was that somehow, my full burner, ran out of fuel. So, what I served the judges was not the cooked down fruit mixture I intended, but rather a very intense mixture of fruit juice.

3. Egg White. Topping my beverage was a mirang foam, made from egg white, tangerine juice, and orange blossom water. I used a funnel to place the ingredients where I wanted them. The issue was that where I placed the funnel after use wasn’t bottom heavy enough, and when I moved my tray back to my prep space, the funnel fell over, leaving a mess of egg white to be cleaned up.

All three of these things were subtle to the audience. I hardly doubt they were noticeable to the camera. But I knew what had occurred and I wasn’t stoked. I was convinced that somewhere in the remaining 29 competitors, six others would keep me from the finals. After all, this was possibly the deepest regional I’ve seen.

It was an amazing relief and a sincere honor to be called as a finalist. In case you missed it, Devin Pedde, Chris Baca, Sara Peterson, Jared Truby, and Pete Licata were the other 5 finalists. Each of them had incredibly strong points to be made during their presentations. Possibly the most interesting for the outside eye was Chris. Setting up an additional table, with seats for two… He called up two people who had never seen or participated in a barista competition before. He then increased his drink production by 50%, serving the additional two people beverages from each course. It was an inspiring moment, that for me as a competitor, was actually intimidating.

Anyway, the finals were intense, with six competitors who were all equally capable of taking home the trophy. It was enough that for the first time, I felt no anxiety waiting for the announcement of the winner. Normally, I’ll cross my fingers and make predictions. Here, there was no telling for any of us who would win. Being called second was a blur. In fact, it’s something I’m still processing. I’m honored and excited. More than anything, I’m feeling motivated for the USBC. It’s confirmation that I didn’t lose all my game in the off season…

I have to say major congrats to Pete! It was great to see him… He’s a tough competitor. Two time, second place USBC, two time Midwest Regional Barista Champion… The second time he won that region, I also competed against him. Also part of that regional was David Herman, who we both had the pleasure of serving, as he judged the finals of this event. So, I guess much of this weekend brought things full-circle for me. It was a wonderful experience I will remember as it gets closer and closer to the USBC in Anaheim.

This post is getting far too long, so I’ll wrap it up. Much thanks to Marcus Boni and the Coffee Bean crew as this was possibly one of the most gorgeous competition stages I’ve seen. It was kinda weird having a professional film crew around. For me, as a competitors who has done this a few times, to have such great audio, video, and lighting all around. Felt kinda spoiled actually.

Really, I write this post to say thank you to Steve Lee for roasting such beautiful coffee. Nick Griffith for being poetic with flavors in a way I struggle. Devin Pedde for ideas, critique, and support when he had his own stuff to work on. I owe much thanks to my lady, Sam, for reminding me that I was working hard and for keeping my life somewhat balanced when I wanted to obsess. I’m especially proud of my other teammates, Nicole Mournian and Gabe Combs. Both grew so much as competitors throughout training… and both had so many ideas and great things to share that helped my performance become what it was. Finally, big thanks to Doug Zell. Competition wouldn’t be fun without the support and competitive spirit of my boss.

Last weekend, Intelligentsia held it’s first Los Angeles In House Barista Competition. For me, the night was inspiring. There were 7 competitors, of which 4 would be moving on to compete in the Western Regional Barista Competition. Silver Lake, Venice, and even Millenium Park stores were all represented. Naomi Vaughn came all the way from Chicago to represent as an out of region, in house competitor.

I witnessed some seriously interesting presentations. There’s something about a competitor who has never seen a competition before that just seems to keep them free to be him or herself. My favorite presentation had to have been Jeff Gershik, a barista from Silver Lake. Jeff has an intense personality… and he showed just that to his judges. His opening line was simply, “I get board easily.” He then went into talking about how his short attention span leads him to like extreme things. Which, then moved into talking about how is coffee, a Ethiopia Yirgacheffe, was extreme (as in bright, acidic, floral, and unbalanced). The moment was so brutally and beautifully honest.

I opened the competition. My body decided to remind me that it’s competition season, and therefore I need to treat it that way… It’s been awhile since I poured hearts like the ones I did… It’s also been awhile since my hands shook that much. (Hydration is key, kids.) My coffee was a washed bourbon from Finca Santuario in Cauca, Colombia. It was pretty tasty that night. Though, I was still familiarizing myself with it… and therefore probably could have given it a couple more days to rest.

When the coffees had been presented, and the cappuccinos poured… The other competitors and I all waited for the results in typical fashion (with whiskey in hand). First place, and the first spot in the WRBC went to Mr. Devin Pedde. I had the honor of taking second. Third place, went to Ms. Nicole Mournian, and fourth place belongs to Mr. Gabriel Combs. The four of us will be preparing over the next few weeks to rep our shops hard at the WRBC. I’m stoked for this team, and I know we’re going to have some fun together…

I’m very much enjoying the conversation going on here. I have thoughts, arguments, and all kinds of ideas going through my head. Most of which have been stated in one way or another on the linked page.

The first time I heard about Double Shot, it was when they were in the middle of the fight to keep their name. They stood up against Starbucks and won. I was stoked to see an independent shop stand up and be heard.

The next time I heard about Double Shot was a the USBC in Portland last year. Someone pointed out that I needed to take a picture of the guy wearing an “I’m not Intelligentsia enough to win” t-shirt. I found this to be very funny…

I hate a lot of things… I hate the Yankees. I tend to hate the Lakers (My ice cold feelings are slowly melting away). Something about Michael Phelps rubs me the wrong way. I’m really not a fan of Starbucks…. Well, the Yankees are unstoppable. The Lakers are pretty spectacular to watch. Michael Phelps mortality is questionable… and at the end of the day, Starbucks employees are going home with steady paychecks.

I don’t hate Double Shot.

Barista competitions. A safe topic. This Friday, I will be competing in my first ever ‘in house’ barista competition. The company I work for is lucky to have enough people interested in becoming competitive baristas that for anyone to compete the road starts here. Interested competitors throw their hats in the ring. The rules mostly remain the same as the World Championships. The difference is that competitors have 8 minutes to serve an espresso course and a cappuccino course. The setup time is also cut to 8 minutes.

The top five competitors will be backed by the company, as they prepare and compete for the Western Regional Barista Competition. Any of those five who place first, second, or third in the regional, will then continue to be sponsored into the United States Competition.

I’ve been hesitant to compete this year. I felt so great after last year… Accomplished and happy. But I feel I can get better still. It’s taken some time to get truly excited for the season, but I’m feeling better about it as the first step gets closer.

Looking back, I’m relatively impressed with myself. I spent only three real days in New York and managed to get to seven coffee bars. Now, coming across the country, I had heard many strong opinions about different coffee spots. In my head, I had formed different hypothesis for different coffee bars, but I kept an open mind. Ready and willing to enjoy anything…

The second full day, I managed to get to 9th St. in the Chelsea Market, Cafe Grumpy in Chelsea, and Third Rail Coffee. The Chelsea Market seems like a place where I could spend hours. With a resource like that, there is no excuse for any New York barista not to compete. I was really struggling to hold myself back from buying all kinds of little plates and wares. Just wandering gave me ideas for table settings and drink preparation.

We wandered up to the Ninth Street bar and I ordered an espresso. The espresso was solid. Very consistent to what I had tasted the night I arrived at the original store (9th & C). However, the experience was a bit lacking. The baristas seemed to have no desire to engage the customers. That topped with the way my espresso was slammed onto the saucer and sorta shoved my way, I just expected more. It’s not that anything tasted bad, but everything I had heard about New York had pinned these guys as the best. Once again, not bad, but underwhelming.

The next stop was Grumpy. This was my first stop where I knew the brewed coffee wasn’t going to be coming from an airpot or a fetco brewer… At the same time, people I had talked to had some stuff to say about how they were brewing their coffee on the Clover. I was ready to put it to the test. There were 4 available coffees. 3 that were roasted in the new Grumpy Roasting facility in Greenpoint and 1 that was from my friend, Matt Higgin’s at Coava Coffee in Portland, Or. I’ve been curious about Matt’s coffee and missed my chance to taste anything while I was last in Portland, so I chose a cup of the Coava Kenya. It was delicious! …and I mean, remarkably delicious. Sweet as ever, beautifully acidic, and well balanced for a coffee from Kenya. Being relatively familiar with brewing coffee on a Clover, I can say that the brew tasted flawless.

During my visit, Grumpy was only offering one espresso, and it was the Heartbreaker blend from Novo in Denver, Colorado. One of the baristas, Amanda, told me it’s a blend of Ethiopias and a Costa Rica. The espresso tasted very sweet and balanced. There were some lovely floral tones to the back end.

All in all, the experience was rad. Not to mention I got to see Renee who moved to New York awhile ago after spending some time at Ritual in San Francisco. Renee was one of the finalists in the Western Regional Barista Competition and may be one of the nicest people I know. It was great to see her.

Finally, we made our way to Third Rail Coffee. Third Rail is using Intelligentsia coffee. I ordered an espresso and a short americano. Both were solid. Couldn’t complain about the drinks at all. I was amazed at how much was packed into such a small space… Not in a tacky manner, either. The layout was smart. I enjoyed it. Here, we ran into Colleen from Grumpy. Pre-Grumpy, Colleen spent some serious time at Ritual. Now, she’s the green buyer for Grumpy’s new roasting adventures. We ended up talking for a solid hour… and somewhere in that, Amanda, who had served us at Grumpy in Chelsea, wandered in and we all got to catch up. It was one of those moments where the people just made everything taste a bit better.

By the end of the day, I was caffeinated and set. It was nice to be able to taste coffee at multiple places and have everything taste fairly good. Nothing was bad…. I’ll leave it at that for now, and save the last two spots for later.

More thoughts and explorations… It was on the plane back to Los Angeles that I realized why these trips are important to me. It’s travel, and seeing other coffee bars that keeps me wanting to get better at what I do. It’s the experience I get from being a customer at a new coffee shop that makes me want to tweak aspects of how I am to customers and how we offer our service. In Los Angeles, we are most of the coffee culture. We don’t have other shops to visit, and we certainly lack a barista community outside of the Intelli staff. It’s makes it very difficult to slip outside of our umbrella to take some things in.

One fine example was on Tuesday night we wandered into a bar called Little Branch (which is some-what of speakeasy). We being my girlfriend, Sam, and our friends, Jessamy and Max from Los Angeles. I really couldn’t have asked for better travel buddies.

We struck up conversation with the bar tender and all too quickly mentioned we were from Los Angeles. He immediately asked if we had been to the Varnish, which is another speakeasy-ish bar in downtown Los Angeles. I told him yes, but mentioned that there are a couple places which I think have better cocktails. He immediately shut down on me and gave me a look like I had no idea what I was talking about… Lesson learned. I cannot even begin to count the amount of times I’ve done this (in reference to coffee shops) to customers traveling to Los Angeles from NY, Portland, Minneapolis, and a handful of other places. This is why it’s important to remove myself from my everyday circumstances.

Okay, more to come later today, but I think the farmer’s market and breakfast are calling me…

I’m blogging to you from New York. More specifically, a beautiful apartment in alphabet city. It’s my first visit to New York and it’s long over-due.

It seems that whether we’ve tasted the coffee or not, we all form relationships in this industry. Directing our traveling customers to a spot we know or we’ve heard of.  I’ve been directing people where to go based on what many of my coworkers have told me. Now, I’m excited to finally put the coffee to the test.

I arrived yesterday and quickly found myself inside the original 9th St. Espresso location. Where I’m staying is a convenient 6 blocks down. Intelli currently roasts the coffee being used by 9th St. I was under the impression that the blend being served was very similar to black cat. However, even at the uttering of the worlds Black Cat, the barista was quick to make it clear that the blend they use is their own. As they’ve used other roasters previous to us, this seems to be something I’ve always heard… Ninth Street fights hard to hold it’s own identity. This is something I can respect.

Anyway, the espresso… It was a solid, happy two ounce extraction. Most of my travels seem to be in the Northwest and it was so nice to  see a proper extraction away from home. It tasted delicious. Nothing about it was overly acidic or bright. The majority of the flavors were chocolate-y, nugget, and caramel. The coffee made me happy.

We walked from Ninth Street to the block that seems to be ran by Momofuku… As in, all three or four, five or six types of restaurants. Miss Liz Clayton had keyed me in that the Ssam Bar was her fav, so we headed there. I have a new found love for fantastic artisan cocktails. I like creative stuff. I respect the classics, but show me what you can do with weird, fine ingredients. That said, I had an amazing pomegranate, ginger sour. The combination of rye whiskey, pomegranate molasses, ginger, and lemon was spectacular. One of my favorite drinks in a while, for sure. The pork buns are what everyone raves about here. They were amazing. So sweet. So spicy. A dish I’ll remember for a long time.

Today, we woke up at a reasonable time and headed straight to the Ace Hotel. I was very anxious to see the Stumptown cafe and some old friends. I was especially interested in seeing what the coffee was like after tasting Hairbender in both Portland and Seattle a mere two weeks ago. I found the espresso to be better than anything experienced in the west coast stores. Bright, clean, and sweet. I accompanied that with a mug of Finca El Puente from Honduras… which had some lovely milk chocolate up front, and continued to get sweet with persimmon  on the finish.

Hanging out in the lobby of the Ace was rad as well. It’s a large space with so much comfortable seating. Apparently, they are doing coffee table service too. The experience is very comfortable. I like the fact that the best cafe seating is so separate from the bar. It allows one to escape what can be a busy and noisy scene to enjoy their coffee in a quiet, more laid back setting.

The rest of the day has been spent at Brasserie Les Halles and the Met. We’re gearing up to head out for some Indian and to explore more cocktail bars. I’m stoked. Today was a healthy 20-ish degrees. It’s so nice to be in real cold weather. I’m digging this city. Tomorrow, I think we’re going to explore Brooklyn and more of the coffee over there.