So I’m on my back from Iceland, Left friday night, back Sunday morning to see the finale of the Nordic Barista cup and compete in the Nordic Roasters cup (more to come).

This was my first experience of the Nordic cup and my first experience of Iceland. Both left me wishing I’d been there for more of it. The people were so welcoming and so passionate about coffee. I must have had 40 conversations with different people about different aspects of the coffee world. The auction went very well indeed and I look forward to seeing how much they made for the Costa Rican charity they chose this year, I’m sure it will be a huge amount. At the Gala dinner that night Denmark were crowned this years champions, and from spectators who had been there all week they were worthy winners.

Team Norway came up with the idea of stacking up a load of paper cups and auctioning off the right to knock them all down. Not wanting to miss a chance to kick down some paper cups in my Sunderland shirt I bid and won. Have some video I will put together over the next few days but some photos for now (courtesy of Mr Tim Varney)

before

After

So the Nordic Roasters cup, what is a UK coffee roaster doing there? For this year they opened three places to any roaster from any where. So when one of the organisers suggested I should enter, I did just that. I took the Costa Rican Geisha that I’ve been enjoying of late (maybe not the best choice I found out later).

I didn’t know how these are judged so I made some assumptions of who the judges would be. As it turned out everyone who was there joined in which I think is a great idea, but hitting them with a high acidity bright lemony coffee may not have been the best option. I also may have changed the dose, but what will be will be.

the roasters competition station

The tray of smaples

We finished a very respectable 5th out of 10, and the crumb I took from it was that I was the highest ever placed non nordic roaster 🙂 Maybe next year hey!

All in all was a great trip got to meet some great people, and enjoyed good food and drink with good coffee in the mix too.

For all my photos from the time there (ok theres not too many) take a look here