The weekend of August 6th marked the first event put together by the Prairie Coffee Project (@prairiecoffee). This organization is directed by Transcend Coffee, Fratello Coffee and Phil & Sebastian Coffee Roasters and its aim is to create awareness for what we call specialty coffee and foster interactions within coffee professionals in the prairies.
The weekend kicked off with a party at our Marda Loop cafe, which featured a latte art throw-down between four local personalities (Burke Dales, Shaun Johnston, Erin Wilde and Bill Brooks). Burke Dales, trained by David from Caffe Rosso took the win. Although the throw-down is admittedly cheesy, the event was very light-hearted, fun and brought the coffee community together. A great way to start the weekend.
Saturday was the main event at Fratello. It featured the 2011 Prairie Regional Barista Competition and the launch of our coffee workshops. The competition was our best one yet, we featured two co-head judges, Amber Fox of Ecco Caffe and Mike Strumpf of Swiss Water. They did a fabulous job calibrating our lineup of judges and it was the best set of judges we have ever had. I also feel compelled to mention Gianni and Nuova Simonelli (the machine sponsor for the event) who continues to impress me with its commitment to competitions. Gianni embodies this commitment and sense of community. Finally, our own Elyse Bouvier was the volunteer coordinator and she had all our wonderful volunteers clicking on all cylinders. Of course, no Canadian competition would be complete without Les Kuan’s presence. We were very happy to have Les back in the fold and helping out in the preparation and for the online feed.
In the end, the competition featured a very impressive set of competitors and the top six finished as follows:
6th – Alix Osinchuk – Café Haven (Sherwood Park)
5th – Joel May – Fratello Coffee Roasters (Calgary)
4th – Jeremy Ho – Phil & Sebastian (Calgary)
3rd – Josh Hockin – Transcend Coffee (Edmonton)
2nd – Chris Tellez – Phil & Sebastian (Calgary)
1st – Ben Put – Transcend Coffee (Edmonton)
It was a very well attended competition that featured competitors from other Calgary cafes such as Caffe Rosso, Caffe Artigiano, Caffe Crema and Insomnia. We are hoping that for next year, we can get even more cafes involved. The top four from this competition will be representing the prairies at the upcoming National Barista Championship in Vancouver on October 2 and 3. Best of luck to Jeremy, Josh, Chris and Ben!
Phil and I are so proud of Jeremy and Chris. They worked so hard leading up to the competition and we encountered many obstacles along the way, but they handled it all with grace, maturity and professionalism. Their efforts were clearly rewarded by the judges and they have already started preparing for nationals.
The launch of the workshops could not have been any better. We were very lucky to have Brent Fortune from Coffee Common at the event. Brent was great at delivering the information in the workshops in a way that was easy to absorb by all attendees, his presentation style is so refreshing and approachable. This year, our programming for the workshops was very simple and designed for a wide range of audiences. Our hope for next year is to evolve our workshops to be more focused: some intended to reach the general public, some for coffee aficionados and others for local baristas and roasters.
The weekend left me mostly exhausted but very proud of what we (Phil & Sebastian) have been able to accomplish in a relatively short amount of time. We have always wanted to reach out to the local community, make coffee approachable and create a sense of community in the local coffee industry. Our involvement in the Prairie Coffee Project is a great avenue for accomplishing some of these goals.
If you were at the event and have suggestions for next year’s event, please visit www.prairiecoffeeproject.com and let us know how we can improve the event for next year.
– Sebastian
