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GREECE of 10 tickets at the show in Rimini. The work group figured they needed to sell at least 80 tickets for the camp to cover its costs and after Rimini, they were a little nervous about making that goal. Yet less than five months later, they had sold more tickets than they originally had space for, and camp opened to a packed house. "I love barista competitions," James said on the opening day to the campers assembled in a large conference room. "But this is kind of the antithesis of that. There is no winner at camp unless it's all of us." Isa echoed that sentiment. Camp, she said, is "not about being better than someone else, but being better than you were before." James said later that he sees a tangible benefit to camp besides certifications or even the growth of a barista guild in Europe: Ultimately, camp might just mean better coffee for a lot of people, he said. He used this rough formula to explain his thoughts: Say each attendee learns one thing to improve their coffee skills and serve better coffee. If there are 100 cafés represented among the attendees, and each of those café serves 1,000 customers, then 100,000 people across Europe will get to experience better coffee because of camp. "One of the cool things about coffee is that people are willing to give their time to make things better," James continued. "These few days of camp are very full of opportunity" for the baristas to seize. The first speaker of the event was MadCap Coffee's Trevor Corlett. Trevor discussed his role as president of Barista Guild of America (BGA) and the contributions he made to establishing the successful stateside barista camps. One of things he said he loved most about the BGA camps was meeting and socializing with other coffee professionals. "We don't get a lot time to spend with people who are as passionate about coffee as us," he said. At camp, he said, that situation is reversed and everyone you talk to cares about coffee and has something to share. The night continued with the 160 attendees being divided into 16 teams of 10 people. Then each team had to complete five challenges including beach volleyball, blindfolded latte art, triangular cupping, a bad-beer tasting, and a traditional Greek dance contest. The following day, the tracks started in earnest, and attendees broke into larger groups as they began their course work led by respected instructors from across Europe and beyond including Paul Meikle-Janney, Sonja Grant, Erna Tosberg, Tim Sturk, Patrick O'Malley, Elisabet Sereno, Asli Yaman, Sandra Azevedo, and Jon Willassen. The tracks brought the attendees different, thoughtful per- The popular hands-on portion of the Hera track allowed baristas to work with a multitude of machines and grinders from camp sponsors. 30 barista magazine