So many beans, and not enough hours in the day in which to drink them
2010 has got off to a roaring start and our diary has been pretty full so far, and there is still a lot to look forward to.
Since the New Year we have conducted a number of training sessions for new cafes and home baristas, giving them an insight into the exacting processes of making a coffee and introducing them to tastes, sounds and smells that might otherwise have been overlooked.
It’s always rewarding to see the beaming smiles of those who have made their first espresso based drink, that they are proud to put their name to. In some cases we have helped a home barista master the art of stretching milk, correct tamping faults and most importantly of all, keep their machine clean.
We’re itching to find the time to vist a newly opened cafe in Oxfordshire whose team were eager to learn to make a coffee using a semi-automatic machine, and thoroughly enjoyed making their first Mochas within an hour of being shown how to turn on the machine and setup the grinder.
Although the mid-week coffee tasting events have tailed off there is still a hive of activity, with baristas preparing for the UKBC South East Heat on Feb 19 and 20, all with their sights set on gaining a timeslot for the UKBC Finals on 28th Feb/1st March at Hotelympia.
To gain FREE spectator entry to the UKBC Finals, pre-registration is required at Hotelympia.com
As we have done our weekend cafe crawls we have been fortunate enough to bump into a number of UKBC competitiors getting in practice ‘on the job’ and have attended special workshops and run-throughs at Kaffeine.
This year the baristas seem to be so much more organised, with sensory scoring sheets being filled in and feedback being sought from all levels of spectator, from enthusiasts to industry peers.
The signature drinks (which to some are a contentious issue) have been really well thought through, and I hope that some of them make it onto the menus for the cafe the competitiors work at, although some are quite time consuming to create, but could complement some of the cafe’s food offerings.
We have been inundated with good coffee lately, with new season crops arriving at a number of roasters. Our postie has been remarking on how nice his delivery van is smelling and today we treated him to a coffee-to-go.
Inspired by a James Hoffman tweet in late December, we have embraced Daytum and created a site to chart our coffee consumption for 2010. Results will be shared in a future blog entry but the results to date are quite intriguing.
Our Flat White consumption figures are ‘up’ at the moment due to checking out the ‘new drink’ that Starbucks and Costa Coffee have embraced and released into the UK market. I feel like I grew up drinking Flat Whites as they were on every cafe’s menu when I lived in New Zealand, replacing the double shot latte as the drink of choice for the masses in the mid 90′s.
To find out what we are up to in between blog entries make sure you follow 5M Coffee on twitter @5mcoffee or @getnoticed
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Link to James’s Daytum Post referred to above;
http://www.jimseven.com/2010/01/31/how-much-coffee-do-you-drink/