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TAMPER TANTRUM LIVE HOLDS COURT AT VIENNA'S WORLD OF COFFEE The exposition area of the 2012 Specialty Coffee Association of Europe's (SCAE) World of Coffee event in Vienna was set up more or less in a square. Stages for the various competitions—World Barista Championship (WBC), World Brewers Cup, World Cup Tasters, and World Ibrik— essentially held down the corners, while other activities taking place in and around the exhibitor stands brought life and color to the hall, as well. The most successful of these, and in my opinion, one of the most interesting and progressive elements of the entire event, was Tamper Tantrum, a mini TED Talks, if you will, which brought many of the industry leaders, trendsetters and coffee celebrities gathered in Vienna to the stage for in-depth discussion of current events in the industry. Developed and organized by Colin Harmon (co-owner of 3FE in Dublin; multi-time Irish Barista Champion, and winner of third place honors at the 2012 WBC in Vienna), and Stephen Leighton of Has Bean Coffee in Stafford, UK, who roasted the coffee many of the national barista champions used in Vienna, and who co-owns 3FE with Colin, Tamper Tantrum began as—and maintains the nature of—an off-the-cuff, fun and thought-provoking conversation between coffee friends, for coffee friends. "Tamper Tantrum was born out of a video blog myself and Steve did at Octane Coffee (in Atlanta) the morning after the WBC finals in 2009," says Harmon. "We basically turned on a camera, sat down with Ben Helfen (then of Octane, and now a trainer at Counter Culture Coffee) and talked coffee for about an hour. Steve put it on his blog and people seemed to love it, so we decided to do it on a monthly basis. Every few weeks, we' d meet up, record a video and post it for people to watch, learn or even just have as background noise to wash the dishes to. We've had some arguments on there, some absolute howlers (I once claimed to be a Gentle Giant, apropos of nothing, and haven't lived it down since), but ultimately is just a reason to chew the fat and talk coffee, business, culture, and more coffee. In the years since that first conversation in Atlanta, Tamper Tantrum " has grown into a recurring discussion that many coffee professionals look forward to as a sort of coffee talk-news show. After the largest installment of Tamper Tantrum yet, at the World of Coffee show in Vienna, I contacted Colin to talk more about Tamper Tantrum's past, future and defining temperament. Sarah Allen: After you had produced and posted a few videos, what was the next incarnation of Tamper Tantrum? Colin Harmon: During one episode I suggested to Steve that we organize a live spoken word event in Dublin for coffee professionals, and Tamper Tantrum Live (TTLive) was born. The idea is to give people a soap box for 20 minutes to talk about a subject of their choice. We have a live audience to debate and discuss with and all the talks are streamed live on the internet and added to an online library afterwards for people to watch at tampertantrum.com. Colin Harmon (right) and Steve Leighton launched Tamper Tantrum, a series of podcasts and video chats, from the Dublin café Third Floor Espresso, they co-own. Tamper Tantrum has grown into a live event, and was one of the highlights of the World of Coffee show in Vienna in June. Sarah: So the Tamper Tantrum concept is still evolving. What do you envision it developing into? A regular radio show or podcast? A traveling mini-conference like TED? Colin: We've had a lot of offers but we just can't put them all on at this stage as it's a not-for-profit event and (Stephen Leighton and I) both have businesses to run. There's been talk of having licensing agreements in the TEDex style, but we're not 100 percent sure on that yet. What we will do www.baristamagazine.com 19 From left: Colin Harmon, Tim Varney and Steve Leighton chat with Nuova Simonelli's Cosimo Libardo at Tamper Tantrum Live at the World of Coffee event in Vienna in June. We've managed to get a lot of really great speakers like James Hoffmann, Mike Phillips, David Walsh, Cosimo Libardo, Geoff Watts, and Gwilym Davies, to name but a few. The idea of TTLive is not to be right or wrong but to provoke conversation. At this stage the videos have accumulated over a quarter of a million views, which is remarkable considering how niche our target market is. Sarah: So how did the idea come about to do TTLive at the SCAE's World of Coffee event in Vienna? Colin: TTLive had traditionally been held in Dublin, but this year the SCAE and World Coffee Events (WCE) invited us to have a stage at World of Coffee Vienna. This put the event shoulder-to-shoulder with the WBC, Brewers Cup, Cup Tasters Competition, and all the other events being held by WCE, so it was a huge honor for us. The greatest success for us though, was that people got it and understood what we were trying to achieve and it worked. We're planning events for this year and next year already, so although we can't say where or when, we'll definitely be going further afield in the not-too-distant future