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THE BARISTA CAMP FROM FRITZ STORM AND KENTARO MARUYAMA IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING that the best barista trainers are often accomplished barista competitors, particularly when it comes to preparing for a championship. Greek Barista Champion Stefanos Domatiotis trained Asli Yaman of Soyuz Coffee Roasting for the Turkish Brewers Cup, and she took first. Famous former barista competitor Heather Perry trained Honduran champion Ana Lucia Lardizabal de Hawit beginning in 2008, helping her earn a spot in the World Barista Championship (WBC) semifinals that year—higher than the country had ever placed. Then there's James Hoffmann, the 2007 World Barista Champion who trained Stephen Morrissey to win the WBC in 2008, and Gwilym Davies to win the title in 2009. None among them, however, has as successful a track record of training would-be champions as Fritz Storm of Denmark, who won the WBC in 2002. After years of consulting on his own, Fritz teamed up with the legendary green buyer and roaster Kentaro Maruyama of Maruyama Coffee in Japan—a company which has produced such national champions as Miki Suzuki and Hidenori Izaki—to create perhaps the most intimate and involving training retreat to date: the Barista Camp. The idea behind the Barista Camp, which Fritz and Kentaro launched in 2009, is to bring baristas, roasters, and growers together to reexamine the coffee industry from new perspectives and to be innovative in their approach to understanding coffee both scientifically and philosophically. Camp registration is capped at 15 in order to give participants as much one-on-one time as possible, and to allow for intense study and the development of deep relationships. Two versions of camp are offered—Open Camp and Competition Camp—and the three-day sessions have taken place in locations such as Italy, Japan, and Colombia. In 2013, Open Camps will be held in Colombia (September 16–18), China (October 29–31), and Japan (November 26–28). Registration to the Open Camps is open to anyone; Competition Camps are reserved for baristas headed to the WBC. "Kentaro and [I] are very attentive about creating a space of confidentiality so the baristas can feel free to show what they have been Kentaro Maruyama (le ) leads students in the Barista Camp on an expedition to study forest materials. The Barista Camp, a three-day seminar for baristas held in different countries, brings small groups of professionals together to study coffee production, roasting, and bar skills closely with Kentaro and 2002 WBC Champion Fritz Storm. working on and show their thoughts among colleagues and competitors," says Fritz. "They know that they need each other to grow." The Open Camps are designed to give attendees a complex understanding of coffee from seed to cup, with workshops and lectures taught by Kentaro and Fritz as well as other invited experts. The camps are incredibly focused, with students and teachers spending 16 hours per day together involved in hands-on training, discussions, lectures, and explorations of coffee growing, roasting, and barista skills. Fritz adds, "Our idea is to create a forum where not only the world's best baristas can be trained for competition, but also more average baristas, roasters, and growers can get a more complete picture of the coffee world, to get educated, to perform better." For more information, visit www.thebaristacamp.com. To learn more about Kentaro Maruyama, see page 80. —Sarah Allen www.baristamagazine.com 19