The light outside had woke me up, inviting me to peer out for the first time across Managua. I couldn’t identify any real town centre, just the hint of a city bubbling away under a floor of green. In the distance I could see the odd modern high rise standing out by its own looking embarrassed. I knew that if I could see it from my room on the 8th floor, that my building must be feeling equally awkward.

It was 5 am. In an attempt to beat the jet lag, I went to bed at 10pm the night before, (6am my time). The Crown Plaza had generously given me free board in a suite for my stay, complete with its own desk and living room area. I’d like to say I felt quite guilty, especially  after seeing glimpes of the poverty on the drive in from the airport the night before, but once I had showered and got into bed, I was nothing but utterly grateful. Besides, I would go on to sleep in more simple surroundings later on in the trip.

At 6 am, I grabbed my Dad’s early edition of Casino Royale (so very very chauvinistic) and headed for breakfast. The breakfast was beautiful, and presented my first encounter where I had to speak spanish. Luckily I was able to say cafe solo easily enough as well as negotiate some extra orange juice. I was on the look out for anyone I knew, but at 6 am my only dining partners were hotel staff. 

I had been told about Central American time, and how it seemed to move 30 seconds slower than what I’m used to. Despite the warnings, I turned up at the conference centre (across the road) at 8 am sharp. There were some people there already, but none I recognised bar Erika, one of the girls who met me at the airport the night before. Roughly 2 and a half hours later I met my co trainers for the workshops, Ellie Matuszak, Mireya Jones, Raul Rodas, Roger Alba, Luis Lopez Flores and Rodrigo Giammattei. We would be facilitating the training of around 30 baristas from Managua over two days. It was my first origin trip ever and the first event I’ve done since Copenhagen. 

This is the 7th year of Ramacafe, the conference started and owned by Henry Hueck, a coffee farmer with farms in Matagalpa and Segovia in the north of the country. Its funny that this should be my first point of call on my first origin trip, following the exact same steps as my buddy Deaton Pigot two years previous, where he became friends with the 2006 World Barista Champion Klaus Thomsen and Kenneth R. Olson of Barista Magazine. I remember being incredibly jealous at the time, not knowing when I’d get the chance to do such a trip. 

The three days of the event went by quickly. I loved training baristas who already had such a strong sense of the journey of coffee. Explaining the need to cut down waste, and drawing attention to the effort that had already gone into their coffee seemed a very obvious and simple concept to them, something that isn’t always comprehended too quickly at training sessions back home. Annoyingly, it became somewhat of a curse too if I’m honest. 

We’ve been working off Anfims with timer modifications for quite a while now in the roastery, and to jump back on a machine preaching economy of waste and then begin to clumsily grapple with the throws of a super jolly made me feel just a little sheepish. Flashes of me traipsing through airports carrying my Anfim, refusing to ever make shots off anything else shot through my head, till I recalled my old distribution technique, and got back on point.

I thoroughly enjoyed working with other trainers, especially Ellie Matuszak of Coffee Solutions. We both teach in a similar manner, and I was delighted for her to be able to use my training presentation, her spanish being considerably better than my few broken phrases. I’m pretty excited to be working with Ellie again later next month in LA.  We’ll be doing a special course bringing baristas up to date on whats expected in Barista Competitions, something I think far too much about and can’t wait to harp on about for two days. Those of you out West can learn more here.

Other highlights of the Nicaragua trip were standing on the back of a pick up with Mark Inman, driving around Managua at night, and sampling the various years of the national rum, Flor de Cana, (of course not all at the same time). I only got to see a few of the presentations, but remember really enjoying Tracey Ging’s talk on the Q Programme.

On the 4th day I bid farewell to my American friends and spent 4 hours, with 10 people driving north to Matagalpa in a small van that continued to amaze me as it trudged through rivers and up worryingly steep and rough terrain. Eventually we arrived at La Virgen, the estate belonging to Henry Hueck, the first coffee farmer I ever met, 4 years previous at a trade show in Dublin. Within minutes I was being shown the farm, a quick tour primarily in spanish but thankfully translated by Jose of Coffee Kids. The farm manager Benito showed me the housing for the permanent staff, the nursery, the clinic they’d built for both workers and the surrounding community, the washing station and eventually, despite it being a month before harvest, some coffee trees. It was interesting to see how this my first farm, made such an impression on Jose and the other visitors. Clearly the farm employs many socially responsible practices, something I knew I wouldn’t always see on future farm visits.  

There were only a few red cherries on the branches and I was a little nervous when I picked the first one only to see an ant crawling over it. I’m not normally too bothered by ants but it was when the guys started saying just eat it, its only an ant, and me doing just that when I became slightly anxious, and now that I think about it, a little upset in the tummy.

Despite this, I was immediately struck by the sweetness. I think I was expecting something a little more subtle, and perhaps it was my appetite, but I found myself sneakily popping as many reds into my mouth as I could the rest of the stay. (Avoiding ants and bugs where possible)

I spent three wonderful days on Henry’s farm, relaxing in hammocks, touring the local lands, catching up on mail, making coffee for the kids on the farm, firing my first gun and getting my neck savagely burnt by the sun. On the last day we drove north to the border of Honduras to visit Henry’s newest farm Las Marias in Segovia, a beautiful small farm that Henry only recently took over. He was able to arrange a small green sample from the previous harvest to bring home. It’ll be great to taste it as I remember feeling slightly frustrated walking around with a thousand questions wondering how or if everything I saw related to taste. I remember seeing things like tree bears, frogs and butterflies and the first thought always being I wonder what they lend to the cup!

Catching up with James today, he recalled the similar sentiment of feeling that you knew far too little about this to get the most of it. This was very much the case for me, and I’m determined to do the relevant research before my next farm visit early next month to Colombia for the Sustainable Harvest conference, Lets Talk Coffee.

There were a thousand things that I could post about, the people I met, the scenery, the food, but these must wait as this post is far too long already. After Nicaragua, I flew to Guatemala – stay tuned.

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.