PITALITO, Colombia – Barista & Farmer, the talent show dedicated to quality coffee culture continues between classed held by the biggest expert of the field in the prestigious academy, a continuous immersion in the local culture and an eye on gender equality, these are the elements that enlived the week-end of the ten international baristas arrived in Colombia from all over the world to take part in the fourth edition of the program.
The talent show, this year, takes place in Huila, the biggest coffee-producing district among the 32 tha compose Colombia. The beginning of the fourth edition of the show created by Francesco Sanapo was welcomed by its governor, Carlos Julio Gonzalez Villa.
“Good things continue to happen – affirmed the Governor – in the department of Huila. We are working on the economic income, the development of the infrastructure and the regional unity, which goes aligned with the strengthening from the government of our purpose The way is education. With the coffee sector, we invested 8,500 million colombian pesos to improve our coffee production and we are having early victories in in the modernization of crops and their production process of 9,000 hectares. We celebrate the production of Barista & Farmer, this type of events of international level extols the department of Huila as a paradise to discover. We are proud to be the first producers of the best coffee in the world and to have 82,000 families from Huila dedicated to the cultivation of high quality coffee in the world.”
On Saturday, june the 2nd, the ten participants moved to finca Bellavista to take part in a picking competion, the collectinf of the coffee cherries, which was followed by a second practical test at the depulping machine, a tool used to separate the bean from the rest of the fruit. The uniqueness of this day was given by the collaboration with Asociacion de Mujeres Cafeteras del Occidente del Huila, which produce Las Rosas coffee, an all female cooperative, composed of 287 women, which was born in january 2008, following a governnmental law aimed at encouraging gender equality.
“We had a mission: to change men’s mentality – says Nelly Saavedra, leader of the Asociacion – strongly ‘machista’, and to give more opportunities to our families. We had the possibility to work the land after the passing of a governmental gender equality law but the hardest part was to change the general mentality. Now we are in charge, in some cases we even run farms, and want to pass these teachings to the future generations. The first steps weren’t easy, because all of the lands were property of men, our husbands in some cases. We had to convince them to gave us at least a piece of land to start grow coffee. In the name of our association I would like to thank Barista & Farmer for giving us the possibility to confront with ten international baristas in a process of knowledge exchange. For us, the value of coffee, was to let ourselves reunite and to create a whole new community around a cup, the amalgam of us all.”
The picking competition ended in a draw, with an ex aequo between brazilian contender Daniel Munari and colombian Diego Campos, who triumphed also in the depulping machine challenge. The judges, in this case, valued not only the quantity of coffee picked but also the quality, coherently with the specialty coffee culture. At the end of the competitions, the baristas had lunch in the finca, hosted by its owner Javier Sanjuan. For the occasion, the were joined also by the mayor of the city of Pitalito, Miguel Antonio Rico Rincon and by some local televisions.
The afternoon continued with classes at the Barista & Farmer academy: the first on tasting, following the cup method, with Scott Conary, one of the judges of the show, which was followed by a class on the different cleaning techniques for coffee machines in collaboration with Urnex, which is partner of the talent. The long day ended with a painting lesson, runned by COARPI, Cooperativa de Artesanos de Pitalito, over some bus mock-ups created in terracotta, with the idea of paying tribute to the Chiva, the typical, multi.colored local transport.
Finally, following the show’s tradition, the ten contestants have been split in two different teams: the first one, team Yukka Yukka, is lead by italian coffee lover Nino Conti and is composed by local barista Diego Campos, russian Victoria Rovenskaya, icelander Vala Stefandottir, brazilian Daniel Munari and croatian Matija Matijaško. The opposite team, named Six Monkeys, captained by 2011 WBC world champion Alejandro Mendez, from El Salvador, is composed by japanese Rie Hasuda Moore, ukranian Iuliia Dziadevych, italian Sara Ricci, australian Glenn Bailey and chinese David Lau – Cong Yuan.
This fourth edition of the talent, besides the coffee culture, decided to further explore the local one: Sunday june the 3rd, after a class at the academy with veteran australian Ben Toovey of Genovese Coffee Roaster, the baristas visited San Agustin archeological park, the biggest complex of megalithic sculptures of all Latin America, and later went horseriding along the Magdalena river, the main waterflow of the country which has its source right in the Huila district.
The new edition of the show started with the right foot – valued talent’s creator Francesco Sanapo – this is a project that keep increasing esponentially, that involves and evergrowing number of people in it and that puts on display the efforts made by IEG, Italian Exhibition Group in the managing of locations and relationships with the local institutions which here I want to thank, like SENA, the Gobernacion del Huila, la Federacion Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia, Cadefihuila, Cococentral. The skill level of the baristas is very high, but what really impressed me was the way they managed to immediatly become a group.”
On Monday, the baristas transfered to Finca Santa Ana, with harvesting and weighing competitions in the morning. The afternoon Academy lesson were dedicated to roasting with an intermediate level course, both theoretical and hands-on, under the guidance of the Australian roasting champion, Ben Toovey (of the Genovese Coffee). From 9 pm, evening dancing with Sanjunaero lessons.
Barista & Farmer was conceived by Francesco Sanapo, several-times award-winning champion barista, in collaboration with Italian Exhibition Group and SIGEP – International Exhibition of Artisanal Gelato, Pastry, Bakery and Coffee, under the patronage of theSCA – Speciality Coffee Association, with institutional partners IILA – Italian-Latin American Organization, SENA – Servicio Nacional de Aprendizaje (National Learning Service), Federación Nacional de Cafeteros de Colombia and Gobernación del Huila, in partnership with World Coffee Events, Lavazza with the iTierra! project and the support of La Cimbali, Faema, Mumac Academy, Urnex, Genovese Coffee; golden media partners Barista Magazine and Bargiornale; media partner Bean Scene Magazine, Cafè Olé, News, Coffee T&I, Coffee Talk, Crema, Espresso Magazine, European Coffee Trip, Roast Magazine and Comunicaffè.
