LONDON – Dave Jameson will be competing in Melbourne, at the World Cup Tasters Championship semi-finals on Friday 16th May 2014. Catch the live-stream here at 3:26pm (Melbourne time), 6:26am (UK time).
Previously, Dave Jameson decided on the spur of the moment to enter the 2014 Coffee in Good Spirits Competition. After some express recipe development and much anguish over timings, the day of the event finally dawned.
The Friday of the competition arrived, and I was on stage at 1.40pm, with half an hour to practice backstage and 5 minutes to prepare on-stage. I was pretty nervous, but took a walk around the London Coffee Festival, where the event was hosted, which was full of friendly faces.
I spent some time in the competition area watching the brewers cup to acclimatise myself to the stage, and I hung out at the Union stand where I confidently told my manager that I was happy that my routine would run to time, I was happy that my drinks were good, and that I was happy that I wasn’t going to win.
I’d realised that the standard of competition was so high that there was no way I could win, one guy spent three weeks developing an ice cube!
My recipe was too simple, too generic and too easy to win and I would be lucky to make the top three. However I was happy that I had learned lots about coffee and recipe development and put myself out there. I was going to enjoy myself and not worry about the result.
Finding myself on-stage, with my glasses, aeropresses, whisky and shakers in front of me was fantastic.
I have watched a lot of UKBC performances over the past few years and always wondered how on earth you can pour such great latte art when your hands are shaking so much!
Being on-stage, understanding the time pressure, and knowing that the judge was trying to see my portafilter baskets, inspect my tamping etc brought it all into new perspective for me. Until you have been in that situation, I don’t think you can properly understand how difficult it is for competitors to say, do and deliver what they want to.
It has enhanced the respect I already had for them, and I think it enhances my credibility as a judge to be able to say that I have competed.
As soon as my time started I had my first problem. I had chosen to grind my coffee on stage for the Aeropresses, and my grinder wouldn’t start. I was banging away at it for 20 seconds, but it wouldn’t start grinding.
I stepped away – told the judges more about the Los Lajones, and went back to it, where finally, it started! Massive relief, but I was now 30 seconds or more behind where I wanted to be.
I got my head down and got on with it, only to find when I got to my other grinder to prepare the espresso that it wasn’t working either. There is a trapdoor at the bottom of the coffee bean hopper, and I had forgotten to open it! No beans were coming through.
I made my excuses to the technical judge -it’s reasonable to waste coffee by clearing out the grinder blade chamber of any old coffee, so that the stuff you use for pulling the shots in competition are as fresh as they can be. I did this twice to make sure my coffee was a proper full dose.
This probably cost me another 20 seconds or so.
With 30 seconds to go, my music changes from cheesy 80’s hair metal (Panama by Van Halen – do you see the link?) to some really fast uptempo 90’s rock (Caffeine Bomb by the Wildhearts) – this is my cue to wrap it up and finish – I knew I had to do this pretty quickly as this song has a swear word at 9:30 into the routine, and that is an instant disqualification!
I finish, and run to the timekeeper – 8:26 seconds – a 13 point deduction.
