Much has been written since that competition, much will continue to be written, a very special week that will stay with me forever as one of the most fun, most stressful at times most frustrating, and other times most fulfilling. This is why competition is amazing, addictive and thoroughly engrossing.

One thing that I owe competition is the friends it has bought to me. The obvious Colin, and John but also David Walsh, Paul Stack, James Hoffmann to name just a very small amount of great people I have meet and have the pleasure of calling my friends. I don’t know if I would be even known by these great coffee folks were it not for the competition. Coming home from the barista party to find Reg Barber, Sammy Piccalo and Heather Perry in your living room is kind of weird but strangely funny at the same time, and being in the competition circle has meant I have got to know so many of the cool kids, who I don’t think would have given me the time of day before my involvement with Colin and John.

But I decided before this competition this was the last time I would be so involved and so invested in the process, and I left London even more determined that this was the right course of action.I have learnt so much from competition, I have become a far better roaster because of my involvement. I liken it to putting a man on the moon. Seems a crazy thing to do but so many good things that we use in everyday life came from the lunar missions. I know I have become a better roaster for competition and that the every day roasting has improved because of the feed back from the amazing baristas I have worked with and the drive to work harder and harder to create tailored challenging blends for each competitor we have worked with and trying to give them what they want when they often don’t know themselves.

Competition is expensive, its been said on many a blog, but its just as expensive (if not more) for the roaster. I can not begin to quantify the amount of coffee time energy and incidental costs (traveling accommodation, shipping the list goes on), but this is not just finically. I have woken up every morning since Atlanta last year and normally the first but at worst the second though in my head has been barista competition.

I see the role of a roaster like the team behind an F1 team. You have the driver (barista) team manager (baristas partner), tyre manufacture (glassware cups etc) you have the mechanics (set up team, coaches, customers) and the engine manufacture (roaster). I say engine manufacture as without the others in place then the team can not do anything (F1 fans will know what I mean when I say Force India and McLaren). But like F1 WBC is an expensive big boy game to be involved in.

Last year I came away from Atlanta with a very different feeling to what I have now. I left that competition that I had something to prove, that both Colin and I could do more, that he hadn’t proved the top top barista he was and I hadn’t proved what I was capable of as a roaster. I shouldered some of the negatives from Colin’s Score sheet last year, I think we both didn’t prove ourselves as well as we could have done.

There was not just one thing, there was a whole heap of things I could have done better and I know Colin shared the same thoughts (otherwise why re compete), but I don’t believe I was the roaster or the blender I am now. The fact even with lots of blends as options for WBC 2009 and IBC 2010 we ended up on a single origin proved that. They were great coffees but the elusive balanced and complete and complex blend was something missing.

This years Blend for John I was involved but obviously a collaboration makes life very much easier and shares the burden. Also I think John took lots of this on board and he developed that blend from two coffees he loved and it worked well.

Colin’s coffee was much much harder. We talked about the blend for 2 years, I learnt what his tastes and preferences were, to the point I could tell from 15 different options which one he would choose. To pinch a line from his presentation this was a huge affirmation for our work together and how much effort and time we put into it. I remember the phone call from Brazil just after I had left the farm of Ingalterra so excited I had found his Irish Barista Championships coffee, without him even trying it or trying it in espresso. True to form from 12 different options he chose the one I had tasted in a cupping bowl on the other side of the world with jet lag.

But for WBC this had to be right, it had to be huge, this was it. For 12 months I had had the idea of the El Salvador La Ilussion. I do not know why, as for espresso its the biggest pig in the range. The first rule of competition is to make a blend/single origin that is predictable and that is consistent. Two words rarely used with La Ilusion. But something happened to this coffee a couple of months ago, it started to change. Its now just revolving into 12 months from processing, so it isn’t past crop but it a hairs breath away. Its been vac packed, and this was the vac wasn’t broken (another post for another day), but new crop it was too crazy 11 months on it was amazingly smooth, sweet rich. It shouldn’t have worked but when you constantly taste your coffee you can see these changes and take full advantage of them.

The second component is from the same area, same volcano, same producer different farm and different year. The long missed and loved El salvador Alaska.This was on the trees 6/7 weeks by rights should need some rest, processed specially for us as a 90kg lot, airfreighted and a special export licence raised for just this lot. When I cupped it at my importers about 8 weeks ago they had harvested a small amount for samples, it was lively it was vibrant, but I knew just like in Brazil this was the one. I straight away got thinking about the Ilusion with it, the calming influence of the former bad boy on this super fresh and alive coffee.

No time to work this out it arrived two weeks ago, just enough time to get a sample to Colin for his approval, and get a profile nailed. Seat of the pants, but also incredibly considered. Don’t ask me for the blend, all the Ilusion went with competition so we wont be offering it (which I kind of like, one off never to be seen again and not tainted by making money on it). But the comments I had from people who tried it were amazing, and I hold it as some of my best work. You will have to believe me on this but I think it was too.

Any how I have digressed, back to the competition. I said earlier I came away from Atlanta with very different feeling to what I have now. I loved the Machacarmarca (and still do) but I felt I could do a better job (I’d love to present it to judges now I know the coffee so well, I think I could squeeze an extra 1 / 1.5 points now that I didn’t have in me 13 months ago (for the espressos), but still one of the best caps I have ever had and all down to CH.

This time I don’t think I could have done anymore with those coffees, I wouldn’t want another shot. I also don’t think that I would suggest to Colin to change anything. The most perfect performance I have ever witnessed, the most amazing signature drink I have ever tasted (and I mean this). I’m a sig drink hater of the highest order. They leave me feeling sad, simple as. But this one I wanted to drink but it left me excited and questioning everything I thought I knew, and made me want to reach for my TDS metre and measure water that I cup with.

I would not change one thing that I did in preparation for this competition and I would not ask either John or Colin to change anything they did. I said at the start of this Competition if I can not roast a WBC winning coffee with “the goats” (sorry in joke) in the stable, with the talents of these two guys then I was never going to be involved in a win.

I feel like i’ve starting to chase shadows I will never catch up with. I’ve think competing two times is admirable and well worthy of doing. I think more than twice then you really need to sit down and evaluate why you are doing that, roaster and barista. Maybe I will feel different in the future, but for now I’m done.

Also there is the reward element for the roaster. Its very obvious for the barista I think what they get out of the competition. I must admit I have got a whole heap out of too, much of what I have talked about here, but there comes a time where the rewards have been achieved. I would have loved to have gone out on a WBC winning roast, it would have felt more of a full stop. But I throw in my cards with the very very best I believe I could have done, with the Baristas doing the very very best they could. What else is there to achieve? So I am calling it a day from competition for at least a year. Customers I will help to use there shop blend’s and I am happy to sell from the website coffees people want to use, but the unique blends and the investment of time and development I am unable to give. Hopefully some other roasters can enjoy the experiences I have been able to enjoy.

There is another blog post inside about the competition that i’m trying to get straight in my mind, and I’m sure will see the light of day soon, but for now, thank you’s to John Gordon, your an inspiration, you do it your way, and for that I love you, for Jess who is an amazing person, if you ever get chance to sit down with the pair of these people you should and don’t talk, just listen, amazing folk that are so caring wonderful and beautiful people. To Jose from Mercanta for breaking his backside to get the Alaska too me even though it was a huge ask it was never a problem for the nicest man in coffee, a true gentleman. Thank you to Ernesto Mendernez who is one of the most amazing farmers I have ever come across and grows some of the most amazing coffee. I wish all farmers cupped their own coffees like he does, the coffee we all drink would be so much better. To Yvonne who has put up with my calls at 11pm at night to Colin who had to live with me during competition and has always opened her house for me to stop on the Ireland trips, for which she deserves some kind of prize. And a very special thank you to my wife Sarah who lets me do these crazy competitions and has to deal with the tantrums, the sulks the euphoria and the lows. She ran the good ship has bean last week while I gadded around London village playing coffee, without her I would not be able ot do any of this.

But yes the elephant in the Room Mr Harmon is missing. He is my best friend, he is the most amazing and loyal person I have ever met, funny, intelligent and all round good stick. He has taught me so much about coffee, by letting me be part of his journey I have become so much better at my trade than I was before. He makes me question everything I do and start again, we have both grown so much in the past couple of years. There are exciting times ahead for me and the giant one, this is not the end at all but the beginning. Take a look at last years performance and this years, it looks like a primary school boy against a university graduate. He has grown so much.

To be fair I have been incredibly busy of late, a quick jump to www.hasbean.co.uk you will see exactly why. A major revamp of the whole site, focusing on some of the lovely photos I’ve collected over the past few years, I hope you enjoy using is as much as I enjoy looking at it. Feedback always very very welcome

I had an email conversation last week that set my blogging mind off, and I was talking about roasting styles for certain brewing methods, and we got talking about the recent in my mugs being roasted more for espresso. I disagreed with this and thought the gayo was a great brewed coffee, and well, it set my mind a running.

I think that the roast style has nothing to do with the brew method of the coffee, nor do I believe that you should roast coffee differently for those different styles. I think I owe it to the coffee to let it be the very best that it can, if that means playing with a profile that may not suit the majority of peoples pre conceptions of a brew method then I can live with it. What I couldn’t live with is not present the coffee the best I believe it can be.

On saying this I don’t think a roast will suit all brew methods an omniroast, but it will be what it will be, it may be inclined towards brewed or espresso. I really enjoy some times a darker roasted coffee in the filter just as some times I’ll play with a lighter more delicate bean in espresso its all part of the fun, but what I want from each cup is delicious tasty coffee that is a wonderful expression from the farmer.

So thoughts, I’m guessing the camp I am in is not a popular one, and not for the cool kids, but I’d love to hear your thoughts, and arguments for and against. Opinions can be changed.

I think this covers my thoughts but if I missed anything comments below please

Love audioboo as a way of blogging, I don’t always add them to the main blog, so check the right hand side bar of the blog, but this one I felt was worthy

It happens to most people (and its not the first time its happened to me), But most people give up there blog and step away. But the times its happened before I think, I go into my inner place and try and come up with a topic. In the past they have come very easily, but this time it became much much harder.

So after much thinking I have decided to pull out the blog post thats been sitting inside me for a very long time. The whole reason I find myself in coffee today and the whole reason I want to be involved in coffee tomorrow. Some times in life there are coffees tastes and experiences that change the direction of your life. I’m going to in a series of posts talk about thew coffees that changed my life. So lets start at the beginning. Lets start where my coffee journey really began.

Brazil Fazenda Cachoeria

The time was 2003 and I had recently started roasting coffee. There had been coffees before this that had excited me and had pleased me, but I can not really remember them. I guess like when your growing up, you have been around for years before you have your first memory. Well coffee was no different for me, lots had happened but that event that formed me hadn’t quite happened.

When we first stared roasting we had some very generic coffees brazil santos colombia excelso you get the picture. I was tasting but not really understanding, not knowing at the time but not getting it. I look back at a time where my enthusiasm exceed my knowledge many fold. Not much has changed but luckily the more I learned the more my enthusiasm has grown.

A contact, Phil a home roaster, home enthusiast had started to talk to me, initially about we should stock certain things, then as a customer, then as a friend. He sent me a sample and insisted that I try it. Being the knowledgeable chap I was I was never listening to a “home roaster”. This was one of the first very valuable lessons valuable lesson I learnt from Phil.

Home roasters have time to play, experiment and really push the boundaries of what coffee can and should be. From the moment I tasted cachoeria I learnt the a valuable life lesson that you should listen to what everyone says. You don’t have to take any of the advice / knowledge given but you should at least give it a chance. The home user / roaster can give you more valuable information that any “industry professional”. Thinking out side the box, and pushing boundaries is the territory of the home user, which is as open as the person wants it to be. I am envious of the home baristas, and the lack of commercial boundaries.

So to the tasting of this coffee. I call it a tasting because in 2003 cupping was not what I did. In fact I didn’t really know how to do it. But I brewed it as a filter coffee and the moment happened. Everything became clear what specialty coffee should be. Was it the best coffee I had ever tasted? No I can say there have been better afterwards, many better, but few that hit the buttons so exactly right. Still to this day its my bench mark coffee.

The cup was sweet, rich rounded. Not as much as today as I believe its kept up with the world of specialty and has improved with it. But it was full of caramel and full of chocolate and one of my most amazing coffees in my mind.

So I made the call to the importers based in London, who insisted I came down and cupped it with them. We were so tiny at the time but they held my hand. They have become the most important link in the chain of specialty coffee for us. They have helped nurture and develop my passion for specialty coffee. This in turn taught me a valuable lesson. Look after everyone that asks for help, one day they can grow and become bigger than you expect.

So a big coffee, I know lots will have seen it before but a video below I recoded on cachoeria catching a lot of the sentiment here.

Final Diary Post from

It talks about how fairtrade might not be all that, and about coffee ethics the kind of stuff I enjoy. Then popped on the end it talked about pre ground and it said

As an industry, I think we need to start practicing what we preach; refuse to sell ground coffee to the public in all forms. We wouldn’t dare to prepare an espresso for guests at our cafe’s using pre-ground coffee so why is it suddenly acceptable to sell pre-ground for domestic use? How much respect do you have for your coffee if you are the retailer and willing to take money for it? I’ll dub it coffee prostitution; selling your integrity for a little money!

Ouch! so it inspired

September was all about the traveling, with the first one staying in the UK and a train journey up to Glasgow and enjoying a Whisky tour. One of my other passions is whisky. I love single malts and see lots of similarities between the industrys, expect Malt Whisky seems to have done a better job of getting it out there. I guess its partly because it gets you drunk (always helps). The one thing I like is that they have avoided the snobby part of taste that wine falls into, and you find the most passionate consumers are also devoid of the snobbery. Its been said we have a lot to learn from the wine industry, and this is still true, but we have even more to learn from Whisky fraternity.

The second part of my travels this month was to be one of the first companies to compete outside of the nordic countries in Nordic Roasters Cup. This involved my first trip ever to Iceland. In the first place a very beautiful country, but the second, a very very expensive one. For just a couple of days much was spent on entering, getting the coffee right and there on time, and on two hotels (more to follow).

So as always last minute plans to go, tied in with not being able to leave until the last possible minute I had to take what hotel I could find. I arrived at 1am in the morning, to one of the most horrid hotels in the history of man. Dirty smelly and in a shared house. Fearing for my life I left at about 7am and got a taxi driver to take me to the most expensive hotel in town, that way I know I would be able to have a bath to ease my bites from the last place.

Nordic Barista cup I think is the perfect home for me, as it is also as mad as cheese, with people dressing up as Elton John and having raffles for a trophy of a goat and an opportunity to jump through paper cups

Build you a tower from Stephen Leighton on Vimeo.

It was also the month that Has forum started. Something I’ve avoided doing for a while because I reckon its been done well by others well. But I caved into the emails I received. Although steady were 160 odd members in the short time and people are using it. I hope to do more with it in 2010.

October

October was a HUGE month for me. This is where I got to meet Gary Veynerchuk. If you don’t know who he is go look at the blog post here

http://www.hasblog.co.uk/video-interview-with-gary-veynerchuk

Gary is a hero of mine and the opportunity arose to do a video with him and it was amazing.

http://www.hasblog.co.uk/my-wine-libary-moment

That explains it better

November

November was more airplanes, and the huge trip to Brazil. Brazil has been the one place I REALLY wanted to go to but had never gotten the chance. When for the third time this trip looked in danger, I phoned some friends and got it sorted myself. The first time it was not an organised trip and was all down to me. My Spanish is bad, but my Portuguese doesn’t exist so not the best place to start this dangerous strategy, but I survived thanks to some very good friends out there.

To Bahia and the Minas Gerais meant I got to see a lot of the country too. Good times all summed up by the video posts, non better than this one

Final Diary Post from Stephen Leighton on Vimeo.

Getting bitten while I was out in Brazil and an adverse reaction to it meant I had the first two days off sick since I set up Has Bean. Horrible time on IV antibiotics, but the kindness of friends made it a whole lot better

http://www.hasblog.co.uk/the-best-customersfriends-in-the-world

December

Every year I plan nothing but roasting coffee for December, so normally a quite month for news, but Mr Colin Harmon opening his Shop in Dublin was a real highlight and us both receiving an award for the tamper tantrum vid casts we do from the guys at www.sprudge.com

December was very nice icing on the Christmas cake, and a great end to a great year.

Sorry its taken me so long to get these out, and sorry its stopped me blogging normally normal service resumed in the next couple of days

I like to talk and I am awful at writing audioboo is one of the best finds for me. Must use it more

OK going to try and speed these up so I can start posting some new stuff on here, so here we do May and June

May was the time for re designs, and revamp www.inmymug.com got a new lick of paint with the cinema screen look that I still love, great work by my good friend Loz.

But it was also the month where we decided to do Tamper Tantrum the first which I talked about in the last month, so I wont go on any more.

June

June was just one thing stuck out in my mind, my working back stage at Glastonbury. To read more take a look at http://www.hasblog.co.uk/glastonbury-2009 but the funniest thing to coem out of the weekend was my special in my mug. Scared security would come and move me on again, its funnty to see me go as quick as I can

Episode 33 In My Mug from Stephen Leighton