The new World Barista Champion is from Ireland and his name is Stephen Morrisey. After a final where all the baristas did an extremely professional presentation, it was from the audience very difficult to say who would run off with the title. Stephen took some chances - or at least he had decided to do a few things in a little different way - and maybe this was what paid off.

First thing to notice was that Stephen packed both portafilters and brewed both espressoes at the same time. He was the only on in the final to do this. He had also decided that he wouldn't tell the judges what they could expect to taste in the cups. He wanted them to be surprised and find out themself what kind of flavours and aromas was in the cup. This was quite untraditional since all other barista make sure to set up the judges expectations for what they are going to taste. Third thing was his use of music. He had chosen some very cool beats and when he was not talking the volume was increased and it worked out pretty good. Alle this resulted in a score of 738,5 points, which was only 5,5 points more than the barista who came ind 2nd, Australia's David Makin. Then there was a good margin to the 3rd place, Liesbeth Sleijster from the Netherlands who scored 694,5 points.

Michael Yung from Canada was very unlucky in his final presentation. For his signature drink he needed to brew some coffee on his siphon coffee maker. But when he wanted to heat up the water, his butane burner did not work. He had no choice but to substitute his siphon coffee with espresso. It was incredible to see how calm he was during this unprepared accident. The two MCs Carl Sara and James Hoffmann afterwards asked Michael if he had trained this kind of episode, and he explained that he knew what he would do if it happened, but had never trained it.

Speaking of the MCs they should receive a great acknowledgement for their work at the stage. In the final round the breaks between the baristas were quite long, but these two guys really knew how to make it interesting. Very well done! One of the topics they discussed was how great a cooperation the baristas has backstage. The interact, help and learn from each other and as such they are all getting better. In this connection I think that a lot of these baristas deserve a credit for taking this and other experiences out to all the baristas and home-baristas through different internet forums. In the few forums I follow, I often meet very good advices from people like James Hoffmann, Klaus Thomsen, Carl Sara, Stephen Morrisey and lots of other "competition baristas". It's great to see that the knowledge gets from the backstages to the public.

Congratulations to Stephen and all other finalists for they great achievements.

Today June 21st has probably been the best day in the so far short life of The Coffee Collective (TCC), a micro roastery in Copenhagen. One of the four collectivists, Casper Engel Rasmussen won the World Cup Tasting Championship earlier today. And now TCC has just won the SCAE Young Entrepeneur Award.

This is a pretty amazing footprint by the less than one year old company. But it does not stop here. While Casper was competing in the World Cup Tasting Championship, the roaster of TCC, Peter Dupont was chosen as the roaster of all the coffees used in the competition. Casper told me about how Peter has had all the coffees in a locked box in the back of their workshop, to be sure that Casper didn't have a chance to know about the coffees before the other competitors.

Additionally there is a chance that TCC beans will win the WBC championship. The Danish barista Søren Stiller Markussen, who has qualified for the WBC final, is using the TCC espressoblend. And even though I'm not sure, I think they have also been involved in other of the finalists blends.

One can only have the deepest respect for the work these four guys, Klaus Thomsen, Linus Törsäter, Casper Engel Rasmussen and Peter Dupont are doing.

Read more about TCC on their website and follow their very interesting blog.

The finalists for the WBC have now been announced. The finalists are in random order:

Daniel Remheden, Sweden
Michael Yung, Canada 
Liesbeth Sleijster, Netherlands
Søren Stiller Markussen, Denmark
David Makin, Australia
Stephen Morrisey, Ireland 

Congratulations and good luck for all the baristas.

Casper Engel Rasmussen from Denmark won the Cup Tasting Championship. He was in the final against Sweden's Anna Nordström and El Salvador's Jorge Escobar. Already after 6 cups he would be sure to win. At that time he had 6 correct cups and both Sweden and El Salvador had 2 misses. And since Casper was the fastest of the cuppers in the final he was sure to win.

Casper had only 1 miss in the 24 set of cups, he tasted during the 3 rounds. Jorge Escobar had a clean preliminary round and semi-final, but had two misses in the final.

After a very exciting Latte Art Final, Australia won their 4th consecutive World Latte Art Championship. This years representative, Con Haralambopoulos, had only ½ a point more than the Russian competitor, Kira Malchenko.

The final results was:

1. Con Haralambopoulos, Australia (46 points)
2. Mira Malchenko, Russia (45½ points)
3. Akihiro Okada, Japan (44 points)
4. Carl Sara, New Zealand (44 points)
5. Georg Brany, Austria (41 points)
6. Jae Hyuek An, Korea (40 points)

See all results on http://www.world-latteart-championship.com/ later

The Danish competitor Mikkel P. Madsen was together with Turkey's representative Seckin Sinanoglu the first to take stage in this years World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship.
It is always nerve racking to open a world championship competition and the atmosphere was the beginning a bit hectic. The nervous atmosphere somehow caught Mikkel and Seckin and they both got a shaky start. 

 
The very energetic master of Ceremoni Manuel Demets tried to get the crowd to help the two competitors but for some odd reason the Danish spectators were very silent, and the Turkish spectators were also very quiet.
But after a nervous start on the competition Marcin Michalik of Poland went on stage and all of a sudden the crowd went nuts. Marcin had brought about 10 to 15 very active and loud fans to help him on his way to the final. The Marcin fan club sat a new standard for the crowd and for the entire competition good job Poland, good job!!

Coffee in good spirit is one of the minor competitions at the Wonderful Coffee fair but if you judge a competition on the amount of noise generating by the spectators during the competition Coffee in Good Spirit was definately a major competition.
After the morning elimination round the competition continued with the finals in the afternoon. Poland, Iceland, Estonia, England, Korea and Greece qualified for for the final. The Marcin fan club was ready for another round of wild cheering but the supporters of the other finalists were equally set for a noisy and supporting final.

Manuel Dements decided to introduce a "hot seat" to the final round, what a great idea. The crowd was already well pumped, but the head to head like setting really got the crowd flying.
It all ended with a head to head battle between Korea and Greece with Greece as a well deserved winner.

We have shot a video of the first two competitors. Follow this link to see the video

Maybe you have wondered about the painted pattern on the La Mazzocco machines that is used at WBC 2008. The blue pattern is from the porcelain factory Royal Copenhagen and is world famous. It's called "Blue Fluted Plain" and has for many years been collected by many Danes - with lots of money.

The Blue Fluted Plain porcelain from The Royal Copenhagen has been popular since the first dinner service was for sale. The dinner service has excisted for more than 225 years and even if it has preserved it's uniqueness, it is not untouched by time.

Read a little more about this piece of Danish culture here: http://www.royalcopenhagen.com/Home-Decor/Blue-Fluted-Plain-Decor.aspx

The first day of the WBC competition has been very interesting. The level has been high and all the baristas seems to be well prepared. This has resulted in some very different presentations.

One of the most entertaining performances - at least in my mind - was from the Chinese Barista, Hua Wei. He is a very energic guy, talking all the way through his presentation - very fast and in Chinese, so I have no idea what he said. But his presentation was very entertaining. For his Signature drink, Hua Wei was combining Chinese tea and espresso.

The Danish representative, Søren Stiller Markussen's presentation was completely different. It was a calm, confident presentation build on a Nordic theme culminating in a signature drink inspired by the old Nordic traditional dish "Øllebrød". One great detail of Sørens presentation was his use of music. The relaxing lounge'ish music helped to build up the excitement of the presentation and topped just as Søren served his signature drink. Very well composed.

The barista from Iceland, Palmer Thor Hlodversson had a pretty dramatic finish of his presentation, where he prepared a sorbet on the stage. To freeze the sorbet he used liquid nitrogen, served it together with an espresso and stopped the time at exactly 15:00. This is something that can make the crowd go wild.

Michael Yung from Canada used a siphon brew for his signature drink. I totally agree with James Hoffmann's comment that it's nice to see the baristas use several brewing methods. There is one thing that is a mystery for me. While Michael grinds coffee for his espresso, he says: "Because this grinder grinds acqurately the same amount of coffee everytime, I don't need to redistribute the coffee with my fingers". Does anyone understand this statement? It would be interesting to hear this in the comments.

Last but not least it should be mentioned, that the reigning World Barista Champion who is emceeing this year's championship is doing a great job. It seems like he is trying all he can to make the competitors relax and feel home on the stage.