11 May 2007
With Italy and India under our belt, it was purely a coincidence that we visited another ‘I’ by taking a trip to Iceland ….. maybe Indonesia next? Here Helen reports back from Iceland where we sponsored the Icelandic Barista Championship, which must be the most northern of all the competitions…
I have to admit to being a bit naïve when it came to visiting Iceland by expecting more, well, snow, or ice, or cold. As I looked down over the landscape during landing it looked at though we were about to land on the moon. This continued as I made my way to the centre of Reykjavik with the volcanic landscape stretching off into the distance.
The speciality coffee business in Iceland really is top notch. As with many Nordic countries they are dedicated to educating and supporting their barista’s like nowhere I have seen before – to the extent that they are even appearing on posters in the coffee shops. With so much support it’s not surprising that the level at the competition was high. It was nice to see the friendliness between Te & Kaffi and Kaffitar, two of the main coffee businesses in Iceland, and how the emphasis was on the individual baristas, and not the companies that they work for.
It was great to be involved with the championship both as a sponsor and also the score keeper. Once at the competition I needed to check a whole days worth of score sheets from the first day of the semi finals, no small task but I’m getting to be quite a dab hand at this now, although a second checker is seriously recommended, as Pauline at the SCAE will confirm! The scores on the doors were looking good heading into the final on Saturday…..
The competition heated up on the last day with little touches here and there designed to impress the judges. Unnsteinn from Te and Kaffi had the most surprising by bring along Gloria and Marvin to decorate his table – two goldfish! Sadly, this wasn’t enough to win the competition (it may have well been different if I was judging…) Unsteinn came in sixth place.
In the end Ingibjörg Jóna managed to make it the double, the first barista in Iceland to win the title for two years running. Imma impressed the judges with her espresso and lemon signature drink, topped with a delicious lemony brule. Sadly Hjörtur came in second for the third year running, which must be hard to take, but, there’s always next year! Imma, along with our other barista friends around the world will now go head to head in Japan. Obviously I’m fully behind James and the UK, but it would be quite nice to have the first female World Barista Champion in 2007!
Nice to see our new range of Bumper gear being put to the test by all the competitors and getting really positive feedback - there's nothing quite like testing it with the professionals!
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