Mexican Barista Championship 2008
Posted by Anette Moldvaer and posted on September 5, 2008
Filed Under barista competition, travel |
(warning - long post!)
As much as I love traveling I do feel bad for abandoning James on his own for a week while I go to Mexico City to judge at the 2008 Mexican Barista Championship. Still I’m thrilled to have been invited and who could say no to go and see the home of one of my favourite barista champions of all time- Salvador ‘Chava’ Benitez.
Transiting through Houston, Texas I keep looking around to see if any of the other invited judges might be on the same flight as me- but it looks like I’m going it on my own. I’m so excited to meet up with these guys again, the incomparable Sonja Grant of just started Kaffismidja Islands, world traveller in food and coffee Jay Caragay, Sarah Allen of Barista Magazine and Brent Fortune from Crema coffee and Bakery in Portland OR, the wonderful Andrew Barnett of Ecco Caffe in Santa Rosa CA, and the legend that is Reg Barber. Not to mention our lovely and incredibly gracious hosts Arturo Hernandes and Jose Cleofas Arreola.
Flying in over Mexico City I’m struck by the sheer size of the place, it seems we’re flying over suburbs and industrialized areas for miles before I catch a glimpse of downtown and it’s skyscrapers, what looks like a forest in the middle of the city, and the World Trade Center where the competition is to be held. As the airport is in the middle of town the flightpath in offers a great overview, and the colour pallette of Mexico City has me charmed before I even touch down.
I’m coming in in the early evening and having been picked up by Oscar Guitierrez who gives me a quick rundown of the city’s history, do’s and dont’s and the best way to navigate traffic, I have 15 minutes to freshen up before the landed judges meet up for dinner. We go to a place called the Witch, and have lovely Italian food masterly ordered for us by Jose, and while the other judges pull out their cameras to take pictures of every dish, (the virtues of travel food photography evade me) I’m more intent on eating it. The food is gorgeous but I’m practically asleep by dessert which I blame on having been awake for nearly 24 hours, and can’t wait for the big comfy bed at the hotel.
The next morning is the first day of judges calibration, and we’re taken off to another hotel to start our workshops. Incidentally the hotel is also hosting the Senorita Mexicana competition and the place is swarming with pretty little things in clingy outfits, causing Jay to stroll extra slowly through the lobby pretending to busy himself with his iPhone. Oh Jay. In the no less glamorous but perhaps less cleavage ridden judges room the foreign and mexican judges mingle as best we can across the language barriere, and I’m pleased to see that there is a good mix of baristas, roasters, machine suppliers and other industry branches represented in the crew. Another nice surprise is seeing Fabrizio who I met at a cupping workshop in London being one of our test baristas alongside Umberto and Chava.
We spend a lot of time discussing pictures of various drinks and calling out how we would score them, which quickly brings the new judges up to speed with the more experienced ones on where the bar lies in competition. We seem to agree on the visual scoring but moving on to taste shows a wider spread in our judgement. As the baristas pull shot after shot we edge closer to a common range and understanding, and work on going deeper into the taste of the coffee beyond acidic, sweet and bitter.
That evening Jay and I squeeze in a quick sauna before dinner, which is in a fabulous chinese restaurant that is nothing like the chinese restaurants I’m used to from Bethnal Green Road. Again I’m half asleep before dessert, and now I’m thinking it’s just me being an old lady rather than the jetlag.
Day two of the judges training is led by Brent who flew in the previous evening, and he shows us videos of the copenhagen competitors for our discussion on presentation- professionalism, dedication and passion. The test baristas from yesterday do mock presentations of espressos and cappuccinos, and the judges get to roadtest the scoresheets bringing up a lot of issues and questions that weren’t covered by the previous days more informal discussions. This is the first national competition run by the new WBC rules, and while the changes are not great I hope none of the baristas find it disadvantageous that they’ve only had a couple of weeks to get familiar with them before they have to present their routine. The only practical change from the judges perspective that I need a couple of drinks to get used to is the tilt of the cup to evaluate crema- how far do I tilt? What am I looking for? I’m happy to see the stirring of espressos being mandatory though, as it’s something James and I were adamant that the judges do to get the full flavour and texture picture without having to neck the whole shot.
Today is only a half day which frees us up to do some touristy sightseeing stuff, and Jose quickly assigns us a jam packed program that will see us driving all over town for the next six hours. Once in the car we secretly conspire to change the schedule, fearing Jose’s wrath but thinking all those activities will have us exhausted for the next day’s judging. We start off by going to Frida Khalo’s house where she lived for 25 years with Diego Rivera, and it’s both wonderful and painful at the same time seeing her house with rooms still set up with her furniture, clothes, corsets, paintings and drawings. We wander around in silence for a while till it’s time to go to Coyoacan where we’ve been told there’s a guy roasting on a 15 kg in his coffee shop. On the way the girls are temporarily diverted by some pretty dresses that clearly need to be purchased, but eventually we make it to Cafe El Jarocho where Victor, the owner, quickly susses out that coffee geeks are in town and makes us pose in his apron next to his red (good choice!) 15 kg Mexican made roaster. Chatting about his greens was fascinating, with a ban on importing greens from another country I’m so grateful that I’m able to get a hold of greens from pretty much any country I would like, and have such access to a variety in flavours. I’m stunned when he tells us a normal roast time would go up to about 45 minutes, but it seems it’s not unusual and it would explain some of the flavours we were getting in the judges workshop!
We all oooh and aaah over the roaster for a bit, but then our driver starts getting worried we’ll run out of time so we head off to Xochimilco for a boat ride on the canals, which is wonderfully cheesy and really touching at the same time. It’s was a weird mix of impressions. On one hand you’re laughing at yourself for knowingly putting yourself in the epitome of a tourist trap where you’re on a boat and vendors of blankets, jewelry, dolls and trinkets pull up alongside you in their boats, or boathop between your and other tourist delegations, flogging their wares and negotiating deals to a truly captive audience. On the other hand you’re passing through someones local neighbourhood, where they live and work, keep their cats dogs and cattle, shuttle back and fort in their private canoes, yell at their kids misbehaving and hang out gossiping over the laundry drying in the wind.
Ten minutes before the trip was over the skies opened and the thunderstorm I’d been expecting for two days finally arrived, sending streams of water into our boat threatening to sink us. But we scurried safely back to the car for the hour long drive back to the hotel, just in time for Jay, Sonja and I to squeeze in a little sauna time before that nights meal. I was so glad I’d picked up a dress at the market earlier as the french restaurant we went to was quite posh, and I’m not sure if my normal jeans and sneakers would have cut the mustard. true to my lightweight self I was yawning between every other sentence by the time dessert arrived, and crawled into bed just before one in the morning very glad to know the next day’s competitions didn’t start till the afternoon.
Today was Day 1 of the semi finals but it didn’t start till 1pm so before we went to the expo Jay took Andrew, Sarah, Sonja, Brent and I to a little taco place he’d found, and I finally had some real Mexican carnitas! I’m hoping to get some more proper Mexican this evening as we’re going out to celebrate Andrew’s birthday.
I’m wasn’t on the judges rota till three thirty in the afternoon but had to step in for a judge that suddenly went missing, and that familiar feeling of being really really nervous to judge creeped back up on me. I hope competitors realize that we get a bit shaky too, or I do at least, as I really want to make the right calls and not screw up someone’s chances for the finals by not focusing or doing as instructed. It’s double the challenge when you don’t necessarily understand when the baristas explain their coffee or signature drink, but we rely on the local judges to pay double attention and translate for us. I was teching today but I stepped in for two of the sensory judges who have a conflict and had a very tasty drink from one of the female baristas so I’m wishing I could do more! Maybe tomorrow when the rota is up, but for now I’m just looking forward to some home style mexican cooking, I might even have to try this taking pictures of your food thing that the others are obsessing over.
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5 Responses to “Mexican Barista Championship 2008”
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A ban on foreign greens in Mexico! That must be hugely limiting to the industry there. Sounds like a very colourful and cool place though. Also nice to get some impressions from the judging side of things in the WBC.
Great write up. Looks like the quality of coffee in Mexico City and other cities in Mexico are getting better and better.
Btw, I cant believe I thought you were actually visiting all of the places for your Taste of.. event. How funny.
De La Paz Coffee
It is very limiting !!!… You can only try foreign bean in Starbucks or very rare places… Still, I think that coffee industry is in deed getting better, thanks to the barista championship, barista magazine, and people like Chava Benitez, who are really concerned about the coffee quality.
Thanks for your perspective of Mexico. I’m in the process of opening up a café here and finding great coffee (and a location) is proving to be a challenge.
I hope you found some great tacos as there are many places to go to in D.F.
Fantastic insight into championships thanks. I look forward to bumping in to all the people you talk of.
How were the signature drinks?