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EDITOR LETTE R of coffee competitors and compadres THIS MORNING, I WATCHED ONLINE as John Gordon of Square Mile Coffee won the Barista Championship of the United Kingdom. When I shared the news on our Facebook page and Twitter feeds, folks went bananas, liking and sharing and retweeting like mad—which is great! One of the reasons Barista Magazine exists is to share exciting and relevant news with you, our many readers all over the world. I headed up to the office after that, eager to get some work done before a spontaneous trip to Milan, Italy I will leave for on Wednesday. I'll be reporting on the second annual DC Campus event hosted by Dalla Corte. This forum will bring together National Latte Art and Coffee In Good Spirits Champions for an intensive practice session prior to the World Latte Art and Coffee In Good Spirits Championships taking place in June at the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe's annual World of Coffee show, to be held in Nice, France. Baristas on the level of John Gordon, and these national champions in other coffee competitions, are hot topics in our international barista community. Some people have the NBA Finals and World Cup, and we coffee people have World Coffee Events. These are our Olympians, so news of them is heavily reported and shared, and we have the Internet to thank for that. As much as everyone likes to follow a champion, though, what of the rest of you baristas? I'm talking about those of you dedicating your lives to running quality cafés where great coffee is served with exceptional service. I'm guessing that describes almost all of you reading this, so let me say bravo—hear, hear! Thank you for doing what you do. We make Barista Magazine for you guys: café owners working for the good of their local community, and our planet, as well. We seek to put role models on our covers, and it so happens that barista champions tend to be coffee-industry exemplars. That doesn't mean everyone on the cover has to be a champ, of course. But we do feature a lot of them, along with their exceptional tales of how they worked their way to the top. The stories that tend to inspire me the most, though, are the ones like Laila Ghambari's Field Report about a recent trip to Iran and the barista culture she discovered there (page 36). As I edited it, I found myself reading large chunks out loud to Barista Magazine's publisher Kenneth Olson here in the office. The Iranian baristas Laila met have passion in spades. When they struck up a local barista guild, they were thrilled that eight people turned out for the first meeting. These baristas have learned latte art by watching spotty, censored YouTube videos. There's barely any social media for them; they make do with what they have. Laila, who is a seasoned barista competitor, and appeared on the cover of Barista Magazine in the April + May 2012 issue, caused quite a stir with her Middle Eastern visit. When Laila hopped behind bar at Sam Café in Tehran to offer tips in latte art, the baristas flocked around her and soaked up everything she could teach them. They told her that seeing her on the cover of Barista Magazine gave them hope for the future of Iranian baristas, and they shared their dream of one day holding a national barista championship, and sending one of their own to compete internationally. We are super excited about the stories in this issue, including Erin Meister's definitive article on latte art with step-by-step tips from Ryan Soeder, himself a latte art champion; as well as our business columnist Tracy Allen's discussion about start-up financing for all of you out there who dream of opening your own place someday. I don't know if seasoned barista champs like John Gordon or our cover profile barista Stefanos Domatiotis will learn a lot from our latte art article, but that's not really the point; these stories are for you guys, the coffee pros on the frontlines where the only judges are your customers, the folks who keep our industry alive and thriving. I hope Mohammad Khani—the Iranian barista who helped Laila with her Field Report—and his peers in Tehran like the latte art article. I hope they pass it around to all their friends, fueling their community and keeping their excitement for coffee growing. This magazine is for you, working café owners, baristas, and coffee professionals of all kinds— no matter where in the world you serve coffee or call home. We do this all for you. BARISTA M AGA Z I N E Publisher Kenneth R. Olson Editor Sarah Allen Art Direction Demitri Fregosi Powers Photographer John Snow Business Manager Cheryl Lueder Copy Editor Erin Meister Advertising Sales Sarah Allen 800.296.9108 Contributors Tracy Allen Laila Ghambari Michelle Foster Mohammad Khani Miro Lomeli Cole McBride Erin Meister Ryan Soeder Daniel Thompson Glenn Watson Editorial Advisory Board Christopher Nicely Abel Alameda, The Hart and The Hunter Joshua Boyt, Metronome Coffee Lemuel Butler, Counter Culture Coffee Trevor Corlett, Madcap Coffee Company Roukiat Delrue, WBC Sonja Grant, Kaffismiðja Íslands Gerra Harrigan, InterAmerican Coffee Heath Henley, Dose Coffee & Tea Jannicke M. Johansen, 3FE Rita Kaminsky, J. Hill y Cia Troels Poulsen, Kontra Coffee Dan Streetman, Irving Farm Coffee Colin Whitcomb, Madcap Coffee Company Barista Magazine 4345 NE 72nd Ave. Portland, OR 97218 phone: 800.296.9108 fax: 971.223.3659 e-mail: info@baristamagazine.com www.baristamagazine.com Barista Magazine is published bimonthly by the Barista Magazine Company, LLP. Subscriptions are $30 in the United States, $45 USD in Canada, and $60 USD for the rest of the world. The contents of this publication may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Postmaster please send address corrections to: Barista Magazine, 4345 NE 72nd Ave., Portland, OR 97218. ISSN: 1944-3544 Copyright 2013 Barista Magazine. All rights reserved. 14 barista magazine