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The 2009 World Barista Championship Finalists were named in a ceremony yesterday afternoon at Atlanta’s Georgia World Congress Center (in random order):
Canada – Sammy Piccolo
Hungary – Attila Molnar
Ireland – Colin Harmon
United Kingdom – Gwilym Davies
Republic of Korea – Lee Jong Hoon
United States of America – Michael Phillips
All six will compete in today’s finals round, beginning at Noon EDT today, April 19, 2009. You can watch all of the action streaming live right here!
And there you have it. A heart felt congratulations to Gwilym Davis from London, who emerged top barista in the 2009 World Barista Championship held this year in Atlanta GA after beating five other contestants with a total score of 623 points.
Sammy Piccolo of Canada came in second with 619.5 points and Michael Phillips third with 618.5 points. Pretty close race I must say. Rounding out the top six were Colin Harmon of Ireland, Lee Jong Hoon of South Korea (or Republic of Korea) and Attila Molnar of Hungary who came in fourth, fifth and sixth place respectively.
Gwilym Davis from London, England, in addition to winning Best Barista also took the Best Espresso and Best Signature Drink categories. It was a little harder for me to find out more information about Davis, but I guess he serves his espresso creations out of Gwilym & Crew’s Coffee Carts in London’s Whitecross Street and Columbia Road Martket Flower Market. They use Square Mile Coffee Roasters‘ beans. Apparently a lot of baristas and roasters go to him for their drinks… and now that the cat is out of the bag, I expect his lines to get even longer.
Sammy Piccolo is is highly regarded as the best barista in Canada and when I say this I think I am understating this. It so happens that he is the only barista to actually have placed in the top three spots in the World Championships four times in a row (including this just concluded competition). Now one of the reasons I am really excited about Sammy being in the top three is with regard to Caffé Artigiano and 49th Parallel. He and his brother started the Vancouver based franchise, Caffé Artigiano, a coffeehouse that I have visited on a few occasions, in Vancouver BC and also in Victoria BC. I have a blog post regarding my most recent trip to Victoria a couple of weeks back where I talk about my visit to Caffé Artigiano. I also didn’t know he is also the co-founder of 49th Parallel, a coffee roaster that does a pretty awesome job, yet, many that I have talked to, even in the barista/coffeehouse arena, have not really heard about. I can tell you that I think they do an awesome job and you can get 49th Parallel beans at Caffé Artigiano if you are in Vancouver or Victoria BC. For those of you in Seattle, head on down to Trabant Coffee. As far as I know, this is the only place in Seattle where you can taste 49th’s awesomeness.
Michael Phillips is a Chicago based barista with Intelligentsia Coffee. One thing interesting about Intelligentsia is that they are very actively involved in the coffee scene with regards to training baristas and tend to be well represented at the various barista competitions. The only place that you can certainly get Intelligentsia coffee is at Specialty’s Bakery and Cafe. There are a few in Seattle, however be warned that the Specialty’s on 4th Avenue does not serve Intelligentsia coffee but actually serves Peets Coffee. Unfortunately I don’t know of any traditional, non-chain indie coffeehouse or coffee shop in the Seattle area that serves Intelligentsia so Specialty’s is what I would go off on for now. Now if you happen to be in Victoria BC, you can get Intelligentsia at Dolce Vita Coffee Art but other than that, I don’t really know of any other coffeehouse in Vancouver or Victoria. If you do know of any other coffee shop in the Pacific Northwest that does serve Intelligentsia, please let us know in the comments.
I was not able to attend the competition but I was able to follow some of the buzz on twitter.
Caffè Artigiano’s Sammy Piccolo represented Canada this week at the 2009 World Barista Championships (WBC), held in Atlanta, Georgia. Beating talented opponents from around the world, Sammy won 2nd place in the coveted ad hotly pursued competition.
Celebrating its 10th year, the event welcomes gifted baristas from over 50 countries to compete for the annual title of World Barista Champion, during the SCAE Wonderful Coffee Event. Enthusiasts from across the globe took in the ultimate espresso experience watching live and via an internet live webcast.
Sammy is an unprecedented four-time World Barista Finalist achieving three consecutive 2nd and 3rd place finishes between 2004 and 2006. After spending the past two years focusing on his role at Caffè Artigiano and opening the Burnaby Café, Sammy decided to take up the challenge once again and following months of rigorous practice, Sammy delivered a polished routine, demonstrating his confidence, competence and great passion.Each competitor must prepare and serve 12 separate espresso beverages including the classic espresso and cappuccino, as well as four "signature" drinks of their own creation and present them all to a distinguished panel of judges. Competitors have only fifteen minutes to prepare all twelve drinks and are judged on station cleanliness, taste, beverage presentation, technical skills and overall judge’s impression. Sammy’s well-balanced signature drink made with a winning combination of grapefruit reduction, cane sugar, crème fraiche and espresso was a sure hit with the panel. Sammy used a unique thermal mixer to comprise his signature creation that perfectly matched his custom espresso blend (a delicious mix of 85% Costa Rican Herbazu and 15% Aricha Yirgacheffe from Ethiopia).
Says Piccolo: "It's always an honor to be able to represent your country in front of a world audience. The competition gets tougher every year, but its exciting to see the event grow with both more participating countries and incredibly skilled baristas." Sammy was up against some tough competition this year – with Gwilym Davies from the United Kingdom placing 1st and the USA coming in 3rd.
Sammy Piccolo's WBC Signature Espresso is available at Caffè Artigiano locations for $21.99 / one pound bag. This unique blend was roasted to perfection by Vince and Mike Piccolo at 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters.
Caffè Artigiano is a Vancouver coffee fave, known for its exotic brews and latte art. Now, the overcaffeinated, coastal baristas have crossed the mountains to open their first shop in Calgary. With top-of-the-line-beans - including the $15-per-cup Panamanian La Esmeralda-and a shiny new downtown location, they're gaining loads of coffee-buzzed fans here too, 332-6AveSW 699-9855
I knew when I had my third cup of coffee
that it was going to be a sleepless night. But I just couldn't help myself. It's not
often that the opportunity to sip espresso
pulled by three-time Canadian barista
champion Sammy Piccolo comes around. So a few sleepless hours was a small price to
pay for a fine espresso.
Piccolo was in Calgary to oversee the training of the baristas at Caffe Artigiano in Centrium Place (332 6th Ave. S.W., phone 971-0043). It's the first Caffe Artigiano to open outside Vancouver (there are six there) and the owners are taking it seriously.
In 2000, brothers Vince and Sammy Piccolo
opened the first Caffe Artigiano, aiming to
serve the best coffee in Vancouver. They
quickly established a following and opened
more shops. Sammy Piccolo entered and
won the 2003, 2004 and 2005 Canadian
Barista Championships and finished in the
top three in the World Barista
Championships in each of those years. He
won the World Latte Art Championship in
2004. Piccolo has since retired from
competition, but continues to train and
coach Artigiano's baristas. Michael Yung, a
manager at one of Vancouver's Artigiano shops is the current Canadian barista
champ and will compete at the global
competition in Copenhagenth is June.
A couple of years ago, the Piccolos sold their stake in Caffe Artigiano to Willie Mounzer, and are now working with third brother Michael at 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters, sourcing and roasting top-notch coffee. In addition, they have stayed on with Artigiano as consultants, suppliers and trainers.
Mounzer, an experienced food-service professional is increasing the number of Artigiano shops while aiming to maintain the quality. He says the Calgary outlet is the
test shop for this concept. If it goes well, we may see more Caffe Artigianos popping
up soon.
Response so far has been as strong as one of Piccolo's espressos. Local manager Joaquin Quian opens the doors each morning at 6 a.m. (8 a.m. on weekends) and is
amazed to see people waiting for him -- and his coffee. Artigiano has all the current
high-tech equipment, including a La Marzocco FB80 espresso machine and a Clover
brewing system for its specialty coffees. The baristas also serve more simply brewed
coffees- - all from 49th Parallel - plus the requisite cookies, cakes and sandwiches.
The current jewel in the Clover is the HaciendaL a Esmeralda Especial from Panama, a
coffee that sold at wholesale auction for $130 per pound. That translates into $15 a
cup for the consumer. A little more than a double-double. Quian says they're brewing
five or six cups of Esmeralda each day for the curious and well-heeled. (Feel free to
bring your own gold cup.)
What's New - Coffee-lovers, there's a ritzy new kid in town, one that promises to serve up steamin' hot joe that can't be beat for quality.
Calgary's first Caffè Artigiano location has opened in the Centrium Building (332 6th Ave. S.W.). It features a high-end Clover coffee machine, considered by many aficionados to be one of the best in the world.
Be prepared to shell out big bucks for at least some of these beans, however; the coffeehouse claims to be the first in the city to serve a $15 cup. the Hacienda La Esmeralda Especial. The beans come from a famous estate in Panama that has been named the producer of the world's best coffee at the Specialty Coffee Association of America's 2007 Roasters Guild cupping Pavilion Competition.
Don't want to fork over that kind of cash? Caffe Artigiano offers other less-pricey options, too, including single-origin coffees and the renowned Cup of Excellence winners from countries around the world. Oh, yeah, and there's tea and juice, too, as well as food, if you're needing more than just caffeine.
For more information, check out caffeartigiano.com
Black as the devil. Hot as hell. Pure as an angel. Sweet as love. Doesn't that sum up a good cuppa coffee? I saw that on the website of 49th Parallel, a top-quality Vancouver coffee roaster and coffee bar and figured it's as good a descriptionof the bewitching black brew as you get - except maybe the hot as hell part. Coffee shouldn't be that hot.
As any coffee-clutcher knows, Vancouver's got it bad for the bean. You might say our coffee palate had it's wakey-wakey moment 21 eyars ago when Howard Schultz, chairman and marketing wizard behind Starbucks, opened Vancouver's first Starbucks kiosk in the SeaBus terminal on Cordova. ut Vancouver was already twitchy for a torrid affair well before that, what with the Italian community's thriving men-only coffee culture on Commercial Dr. In fact, it was a trip to Italy that inspired Schultz to see if espresso bars would fly in Seattle Those Commercial drive coffee bars thrive to this day and some, like Cafe Calabria and Joe's were co-opted by the intelligentsia becoming hipster hangouts.
The degree of this city's coffee love was a revelation, even to Schultz. In an interview with Sun business reporter Bruce Constantineau last year, Schultz said he had expected Vancouver to embrace designer coffee but what really blew him away was the Robson and Thurlow corner where two Starbucks sit cattycorner, both raking in the cash. There are signs that the explosive growth of Starbucks is slowing, if not reversing, but still about a third of all Starbucks in Canada are located in Vancouver, which also astounds Schultz.
My reading of it is, coffee has become shorthand for our once and former West Coast Lotusland lifestyle. It's the surviving shrunken remnant of the easy-going culture we were so famous for.
Vince Piccolo has something to do with our obsession with coffee. He opened Caffe Artigiano in 1999 to hosannas from the coffee geeks and soon it morphed into several locations, creating even more connoisseurs and converts.
"It was a dilemma," he says of his success. "High-volume places have a hard time giving the highest quality. It's not feasible." (He sold the business and started another last year called 49th Parallel; it's mainly a high-quality coffee wholesaler with a showcase coffee bar on Fourth Avenue.)
Making great coffee is labour intensive, he says. Even a regular cuppa, for best results, should use freshly ground beans and to make espresso, baristas need to understand the science of extracting flavour. "There are so many variables," he says, "It's kinda like a chef. If they take care of all the details, they produce the best meals."
Unlike in Italy, baristas here are not lifers. They are stop-gap jobs so training becomes an issue. "There's a lot of mediocre coffee, not because people aren't trying but because it's very difficult," he says.
Coffee palates are developing in tandem with chocolate palates. Dark, complex flavoured chocolates have supplanted timid milk chocolate. Likewise, serious coffee drinkers are eschewing the huge lashings of milk. Yes, you still can get 20-ounce lattés that could be fed to a baby but that's changing.
"I have a long-time customer who used to drink 12 and 16-ounce coffee drinks. Now the same customer wants six ounces [with the same amount of coffee]. Slowly, but surely, the North American palate is becoming more like the European palate," Piccolo says. "I'm part of this. I used to drink nine-ounce café lattés. Now if there's a bit of milk, it's too much. I drink double espresso, no sugar. But what I also love are single-origin coffees [for drip coffee]. You taste what the coffee is about, the region. It's like wine." But for espresso, he says blended coffees fare better under the intense pressure and grinding. "You'll only get one dimension of the single-origin."
In Italy, he says, milk-based coffees are drunk only in the morning. "If you order a cappuccino after diner i Italy, they'll look at you in disdain," he says. And the Americano, too, is a wimpy drink that was developed during the Second World War for American soldiers. "They couldn't drink espresso."
The other big difference is the take-away. "In Italy, you don't see large cups or to-go cups. Everybody has coffee in a bar. They don't walk on the streets with it."
He says there are two types of coffee-drinkers. "There are those who want caffeine and those who want good quality. I used to be able tell, just by looking at people on the street, whether they would be coming into our shop or to our competitor's. It wasn't prejudice because we'd get all kinds of customers from snowboarders to construction workers to mothers with babies to little old ladies. They just wanted great quality coffee."
Piccolo tends to like Kenyan and Ethiopian coffees for their higher acidity. "Higher acidity gives a sparkling sweet type of flavour and you get a lot more character in these coffees. Those who don't have a coffee palate don't like them."
I remember my own discovery of good coffee when I had my first cappuccino and latté in the late 1970s at a coffee bar called La Boca Bar on West Fourth Ave. It became the focal point around which I met my girlfriends and got caught up. Caffeine, of course, made for rapid and sustained chatter, sometimes with foam-rimmed lips.
Starbucks now has over 8,000 outlets in the world and its corporate personality might be wearing thin. But what it did is undeniable -- it took us beyond the realms of drecky drip office coffee. And today, while coffee bars abound, you still have to search for ones that serve high-quality, well-made coffee in a pleasant setting.
To me, a city with a lot of coffee bars is a city with a good soul. Somewhere in its hiearchy of values, there's room for friendship, for chilling out, for playing, and shall we go so far as to say, intellectualizing? Vancouver's well-known for its hot looks and its outdoorsy connection but wouldn't it be nice to add 'brainy'? With all that caffeine, all that brain activity, maybe soon.
Personally, we'd rather be in our jammies. But if you prefer to get an early start at work, the new Caffe Artigiano at 574 Granville Street can pump you full of caffeine from 6 a.m. weekdays, 7 a.m. weekends.
Caffe Artigiano
740 West Hastings Street
604-915-7200, caffeartigiano.com
Breakfast weekdays 6am-2:30pm,
weekend brunch 7am-3pm
With chain coffee shops dispensing cappuccinos and biscotti as a matter of course, the thrill of Italian breakfasts has waned a bit. One place to recapture the verve of that Roman Holiday lifestyle is Caffe Artigiano of which there are a few around town and one especially worthy of note.
Matching the espresso machine, that sea-gree Vespa is only for decoration. But factor in the high ceilings, tiled tables, brocaded banquettes, retro posters and Versace signage across the street, and the Caffe Artigiano branch on Hastings Street is a true Italian outpost. Home to the strongest and prettiest cappuccinos in the city (year after year, these folks score tops in global barista contests) it also produces one of the city's finest and best priced brunches with inventive dishes, with inventive dishes like cranberry French toast, stuffed with citrus cream cheese and served with pear marmalade.
The scrambled eggs with smoked provolone are a weekday favorite. Classic Uova Napolitano translates as perfectly poached eggs on a tomato sauce of wake-up intensity. Poached eggs also repose on a generous cake o fpotato, chopped salmon, and green onions-surrounded by an olive oil zabaglione, smooth and rich as a Roman playboy.
Caffe Artigiano servers a great cup of coffee. Some people even remember to eat finding a healthy choce in the delicious turkey panini. Various locations. caffeartigiano.com