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Perry of Klatch Coffee. "She just schooled us," Baca says. "We didn't know what to do." Baca placed eighth and Truby came in second to last. The most important thing to come out of the competition, though, was the fact that they'd met. It would still be a few years before Devin Pedde would coin the phrase "Trubaca"—inspired by the fact that these guys are inseparable—but the friendship was established. After that, "Jared and Colby would always go to San Francisco to see hip-hop shows," Baca tells me, "and they would always come into Ritual." Baca heard rumblings about plans for a new coffee company in Santa Cruz called Verve, and when it opened, Baca went with a crew of baristas to check it out. "Devin [Pedde], Ryan [Willbur, he and Pedde both then with Intelligentsia Coffee], Drew [Catlin, then a barista with Baca at Ritual], and I went to work a guest shift at Verve," Baca says. "We camped out in tents at Costanoa on the Central Coast." From then on, Baca says, "Jared came in [to Ritual]—he kept coming in. We just became better and better friends." He was intrigued by Colby and Ryan, too: "I was plugged into their vibe," Baca says. He didn't blink when they told him they couldn't pay him as much as he was making at Ritual, at least not initially. "It just felt really good," he says. This is when the Trubaca dynamic changed and intensified: Working side-by-side every day, not only did Truby and Baca's friendship get stronger, but their ability to motivate and inspire each other grew powerful. Amazing things came out of it. Barista-competition success, for one thing. Baca already had a taste for competing from having won the Southwest Regional and going on to place fourth in the United States Barista Championship in 2008. Their most notable accomplishments on the coffee stage while they've been working together at Verve are making regional finals in 2009, 2010, and 2011 (Truby); winning the second-place trophy in the 2010 United States Barista Championship (Baca); earning first place at the 2011 Southwest Brewers Cup (Baca); taking fifth (Truby) and third (Baca) in the 2012 USBC; and winning the 2012 Southwest Barista Competition (Truby). Not everything's about competition, though. In the grand scheme of things, actually, very little is about barista contests. Baca and Truby are perhaps more proud of a concept they came up with by accident on bar one day than they are about their esteemed compe- tition records. Ever wonder who invented the one-and-one? "We were doing a competition-coffee tasting event at 41st in 2010, and were serving espressos, macchiatos, cappuccinos, and signature beverages." Baca says to Truby, "JT, you had an order out for an espresso and a macchiato, but we'd run out of the right sau- cers, and in an instant of barista ingenuity, you perched the espresso alongside the macchiato on a cappuccino saucer and served it. It balanced perfectly, looked sweet, and basically blew my mind. I was pretty jealous that I didn't do it first. I'm not sure if the name came before or right after but that was the moment of creation for me." (Check out the one-and-one video they made under the Trubaca name: http://vimeo.com/12165678) Over burritos at Los Piños in downtown Santa Cruz, I ask them to elaborate on their love story; Baca and Truby are not one bit shy about discussing how much respect they have for one another. "Baca told me once that I was the best barista he knew," Truby SUBSCRIBE TODAY! DON't MISS AN ISSUE! www.baristamagazine.com BARISTAS TURNED CAFÉ OWNERS BARISTA CHAMPS TAKE ON KENYA EXPLORING BANGKOK'S CAFÉ CULTURE COFFEE KIDS FOUNDER BILL FISHBEIN FEBRUARY + Ê, ÊÓä£{ÊUÊ6"1ÊÉ--1ÊÈ DELPIERRE FRANCE'S D E L P I E R R E L P I E R R E VICTOR INTERNATIONAL COFFEE COCKTAILS CHAMPION D S R I N APRIL + Ê9ÊÓä£{ÊUÊ 6,-,9Ê--1Ê6"1Ê£äÉ--1Ê£ STRAIGHT OUTTA SANTA CRUZ PROGRESS IN THE FIGHT AGAINST LEAF RUST A STUDY IN COFFEE FORENSICS COFFEEHOUSE MIXTAPE 65 www.baristamagazine.com B o o k 5 5 - 8 8 . i n d d 6 5 Book 55-88.indd 65 3 / 1 9 / 1 4 1 0 : 0 7 P M 3/19/14 10:07 PM