02 Mar 2020
On the 19th of March I will compete in a coffee competition, the French National Brewers’ Cup Championship. I will fly out of Sydney two weeks before the competition starts to prepare.
A coffee competition, really?
Yes, there are such things as coffee competitions. Most of them are organised by the SCA (Specialty Coffee Association). In the coffee industry they are the equivalent to the Olympics but for coffee. Once a year each country sends their best baristas/roasters/coffee experts to the World Championship to compete in a variety of categories. These categories include the following:
- Barista (espresso-based coffees)
- Brewers’ Cup (manual brews, filter coffee)
- Latte Art
- Cup Tasters
- Coffee in Good Spirits (coffee-based cocktails)
- Roasting
Who are these competitions for?
Competitions are probably best suited for people who want to challenge themselves and push their understanding of coffee. It’s also a great occasion to meet new people, network, learn more about coffee but also drink outstanding brews.
Even though you don’t always get to taste the coffees brewed on stage, you might learn a lot about coffee farming, different varieties, innovative processing or even brewing techniques. This is information that even home baristas can use to improve their coffee knowledge.
Why you should be involved in a coffee competition?
Not everyone is interested in competing which is understandable. Some might feel uncomfortable speaking in public and stepping out on stage while others are afraid of presenting confronting ideas and theories that might be different to the rest of the industry.
Coffee competitions require a very high level of commitment, both personally and financially. That being said a lot of people end up competing with the support of a team to help manage the workload. This allows competitors to rely on someone else to source and roast their coffee or even to build a presentation with them so they can focus on brewing and practicing for their routine.
This means that if you don’t want to go on stage but still want to be involved you can support a competitor in many different ways!
By no means have I a lot of experience in competing but even prior to my nationals I can already give you 5 reasons why the whole preparation process was worth it:
1. You meet talented and amazing people
It’s a great way to meet new people and improve your network, you might get to travel, spend long rainy days brewing and drinking delicious coffees, but above all spend time with friends. You will truly experience what a coffee competition is if you practice with other people rather than by yourself. Not only will you receive valuable feedback, but coffee is all about connecting people around the World and bringing them together, so why would you want to go solo?
2. You drink incredible coffees
Leading up to your competition you will taste hundreds of amazing coffees from the best farms around the World. You need to get this exposure to many incredible coffees to have a strong benchmark and more reference points, which will allow you to select the right coffee for your competition.
3. You improve your public speaking and presentation skills
Part of most competitions is to deliver the coffees through a presentation called “the routine”. A good routine must be exciting, and a good competitor should deliver outstanding customer service, which means being engaging, speaking at the right pace and distinctively.
4. You challenge your understanding of brewing
Competition preparation is the occasion to deep dive into rabbit holes and experiment, playing with different variables. This will eventually give you a better understanding of how each individual variable impacts your final brew which means you will dial in any coffee a lot faster and know exactly what to change to improve a brew. I’ve had to force myself to forget everything I knew about brewing in order to start fresh and be able to fully explore all these variables individually.
5. You’ll fall in love with coffee even more
Sometimes you get too comfortable in your job and you don’t feel challenged enough on a daily basis. You might even question the reasons why you work in the coffee industry and competition might be a way for you to re-discover coffee and fall in love with it again – or you might end up like me, overdosing on Geisha coffee and never want to drink floral coffees ever again…
Hopefully everything goes well for me in France and I get to share some of my competition brews when I get back to Sydney!
Contributed by Simon Gautherin, Coffee Trainer.