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THE SEMIFINALS ROUND OF THE World Barista Championship (WBC) is where things start getting tense. People in the audience sit a little taller in their seats; competitors repeatedly wipe sweaty hands on their aprons. So to see a barista amble onto the semifinals stage, smiling casually, visibly relaxed—well, it's a rare thing. But that's the exact depiction of Colin Harmon's demeanor earlier this year, on a balmy day in June in Vienna, Austria. He seemed nothing less than simply content to be there, even though it was this Irish Barista Champion's third time in the WBC arena. He won fourth place in Atlanta, in 2009, and fourth again in London in 2010; quite remarkable standings—especially for that first run, when he had only worked as a barista for six months prior to earning his national title. To know Colin, however, is to not expect anything different. His motto is, "Make nice coffee, be nice to people," and his mission is to bring great coffee to absolutely everyone—not just industry geeks. In fact, the premise of his entire 2012 routine was based on that. Colin's explanation of this goal took well over a minute at the beginning of his presentation—and that's a long time when you've only got 15 minutes to work with. "So, I'd like you all to imagine a specialty-coffee shop," Colin told his judges, "and in this coffee shop everything is exactly how we would want it. There's amazing coffee, wonderful equipment, incredible things got busy. "What I want to achieve with 3FE is a place where you're always going to get a quality cup. There are huge problems associated with doing that in large volumes, but when faced with maintaining quality or compromising to get the orders out, too many businesses chose the latter route and blame their circumstance." In Vienna, Colin delighted not only the audience, but also his judges by stripping the coffee experience down to basics and rebuilding. His signature drink was a caricature of his espresso (i.e. it has the important elements of his coffee's profile: red-fruity acidity, apricot sweetness, creamy texture, and a bitter peach finish), exaggerated, just like the adorable cartoon caricature of himself by a barista friend in Dublin that Colin brought to the state as a reference. His performance was pure Colin: gentle and fun, witty and bright, intellectual but modest. This is a man who is happy because he trusts his instincts—and while that may sound carefree and easy, Colin's path to coffee was anything but. With an honors degree in business and legal studies from University College Dublin, Colin secured an impressive position with an investment bank, and could look forward to economic stability for him and his family for the long haul. Needless to say, after discovering specialty coffee as a zealous consumer, and deciding to leave banking behind and pursue work as a barista wasn't Colin's original plan. "I've been told in the past that we [at 3FE] have it easy because our customers like great coffee, but that's taken so much hard work to get to that point. Great coffee is great coffee; blaming your customers is just an easy way out of blaming yourself." baristas, a really innovative new design concept. Everybody has skinny jeans. It's incredible—exactly as we would want it, OK? "And then in the door walks [a] regular guy, never been to a specialty-coffee shop before. And he starts to look around. And he notices a few little differences: maybe smaller cups, a shorter menu, farm names on the board. And all these little things build up in his head and he goes, 'Oh, this is a bit different.' And he hestitates. And that for me is where specialty coffee is today. That we have all these amazing resources and people and coffee. But we're still that close to engaging the regular people." His WBC performance was in fact a microcosm of his business in Dublin: Third Floor Espresso, or 3FE, which is coming on its third anniversary, and which he co-owns with roasting phenom Steve Leighton of Has Bean. While 3FE is without a doubt one of the top cafés in Europe and is known around the world, Colin's all about making coffee for the people, and making the experience a great one. "What used to really annoy me about going to coffee shops was not how bad it was, but how good it sometimes was," he says. "The more I traveled and saw different coffee shops, the more I saw a gap between what baristas were capable of and what they were serving. I'd often hear 'This is great, but our customers wouldn't get it,' or see baristas make excellent coffee before they open the shop and then watch the quality slide when He's very close to his family—mother Ger and father Leo; younger brother Ian and older sister Jill; and his wife, Yvonne, with whom he just welcomed new son Oscar—so Colin sat them down to explain his decision as soon as he'd made it. "My parents and my wife were a huge support to me," Colin recalls. "I think they would have worried if I'd just quit my job and started working in a coffee shop on a whim, but I made sure they knew I was serious about my ambition. I remember asking my parents to sit down with me so I could tell them something, so I'm sure they feared the worst when that happened. Once I told them, they were really supportive because they knew I wasn't messing about… They both understand that having a successful career is not about getting a safe job and absorbing pay rises as the years tick by. It's about working hard, being honest, and doing your best. Once they knew I was going to apply those criteria to my new career they were 100 percent behind me. Yvonne was the one that had to reassure me day-to-day, though, and I couldn't have done it without her. My salary was more than halved overnight, and she never once held that against me. There were times when we went without and had very little time away together, but she never made it an issue." Colin's first move in coffee was so seek out Karl Purdy, owner of Coffee Angel in Dublin, which is widely regarded as the predominantly tea-drinking city's first specialty coffeehouse. "I'm pretty sure [Karl] www.baristamagazine.com 67