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BARISTA NATION MAKES ITS EUROPEAN DEBUT, TO GREAT SUCCESS JUST ABOUT ANYONE CAN CONJURE an image of a Parisian café with their imagination: a glass-fronted bistro stretching around a city street corner; sharp-looking servers in long aprons waiting with menus; and you, whiling away the day in one of those quintessential, brightly colored woven rattan chairs, one in a line of maybe 50 set to face the sidewalk. If you can picture this, then you know Cafés Richard, France's leading coffee roaster, which provides coffee for more than 60 percent of the Parisian café and restaurant market. A family-owned operation since it was founded in the early 19th century, Cafés Richard is a solid part of of Paris's coffee culture. Though Cafés Richard is available throughout the world, it is biggest and most well loved in Paris, where it has set the palate expectations for coffee lovers for centuries. Recently, Paris has seen a new outcropping of coffee outlets, including microroasters and third-wave cafés working to develop a new branch of the grand old tree that is Parisian coffee culture—and it's growing strong (see Editor's Letter, p. 12). But that doesn't mean Cafés Richard, a more traditional company, has been left in the dust. Far from it: In a city this size, there's room for everyone, from the young coffee geeks looking for the next new thing, to the traditionalists who have enjoyed Cafés Richard since they were children. Truly, Cafés Richard was safe and sound holding up Paris' classic café culture. But the people behind the company—including Anne Bellanger, the whip smart and forward-thinking daughter of Cafés Richard owner Pierre Richard, and head of production Michael McCauley, a familiar face at global barista events—wanted to be a part of coffee's progressive movement. Michael has been at this for years, traveling the world both to buy coffee and represent the French barista community as a World Barista Championship (WBC) judge. And Anne, when she heard about the work The iconic café city of Paris was the fi ing se ing for Barista Nation's first European event. Hosted by the gracious Cafés Richard in the company's gorgeous Académie du Café, the event a racted more than 150 independent-café owners, and coffee and barista professionals from across Europe. Multiple French Barista Championship winner Anthony Calvez (pictured at right) worked the long bar at the Académie du Café throughout the event, making cappuccinos and espressos for the guests. Anthony, who works for Cafés Richard as a wholesale account trainer, gave a well-a ended lecture with reigning French Barista Champion Ludovic Loizon during the event, called "Secrets of a Champion. that Cafés Richard's chief espresso machine provider—the French company UNIC—had accomplished with the Barista Nation model, was quick to get Cafés Richard onboard. The pairing is a perfectly synergistic one: Barista Nation is a grassroots event that, since it premiered in Minneapolis in May of 2011, has brought coffee professionals together for one-day events that offer new equipment and product testing, community-building exercises, and, most importantly, free education from industry leaders. On the Cafés Richard side, hosting Barista Nation's first European event meant attaching its name to a coffee crusade that is by the people, for the people—in essence, proving that Cafés Richard, while a traditional and Old World company, had its eyes firmly focused on the future. As soon as the date of Barista Nation Paris was announced, registration exploded. Barista Nation founder Anastasia Chovan was thrilled to reach and then exceed capacity, and looked forward to an event that would welcome not only French baristas and café owners, but also coffee professionals from Sweden, Hungary, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Italy. Truly, this firstever European Barista Nation would be one for the history books. After months of planning by UNIC's Mario Levy in the Paris office and Pascale Moll in the Nice headquarters for UNIC, with Pierre Wemaere, Michael and Anne on the Cafés Richard end, Barista Nation Paris was set to welcome 150 guests to the all-day event on October 15. The setting: Cafés Richard's extraordinary training facility, Académie du Café. This is one of the most brilliantly designed training spaces I have ever visited, with five complete bars set up on the floor, each with a sparkling Stella di www.baristamagazine.com 27