The Northwest Regional Barista Competition (NWRBC) is coming up the first weekend of February, and to help potential competitors prepare, the Barista Guild and Sprudge.com hosted a mock competition run-through on January 5th at the American Barista and Coffee School in Portland (there was also one in Seattle the night before).
Laila Ghambari, who now works for Caffe Ladro in Seattle, put together a 15-minute performance to demonstrate what a typical entry would look like. To make the demonstration as real as possible, two technical judges and four sensory judges (including me) gave her a set of scores, just as we would in a real competition. Marcus Young, of Central City Coffee acted as the head judge and led us as we discussed our scores in front of everyone.
The event informed (and hopefully inspired) the baristas in the audience who were interested in competing at the NWRBC and beyond. Afterwords, Sprudge put together a nice video that explained Laila’s performance as she went through it. Check it out below:
NWRBC details:
When: February 1-3, 2013
Where: Urban Enoteca, 4130 1st Ave S, Seattle, WA, 98134 (map)
Why you should go: You like coffee and/or Seattle
Cost: Free to watch, as far as I know (it has been in the past), and includes as much espresso as you will ever want to drink in a day
Website: In case you don’t go, you can watch it streaming online at: http://usbaristachampionships.org