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café culture on the side? Then check out the "Caffeination Seoul" video on YouTube.) Since most of the other event planners didn't have throwdown experience, it came down to me to get the thing up and running. In the end, it worked—it totally worked. Slowly, baristas started filing into the cavernous, stylin' Pancake Epidemic space. Here's the scene: The café is open-air on the first floor, with loads of comfortable seating, and the café—espresso, manual brew, cold brew, you name it—is on the second floor, with the Stussy show- room in between, and Seoul's most sought-after barber hold- ing court in a glass box within the café—as if the space wasn't already cool enough. La Marzocco's busy Korea office set the café up with a superfly Strada, and the meticulously trained barista staff just flies on it. Matt's nerves were evident as he raised a demitasse of Stumptown's famous Hairbender espresso to his mouth and sipped. He paused for a second, and then he said, "That's so weird," and shook his head. "I just had an awesome shot of Hairbender… in Seoul." The visiting baristas seemed to think so, too. They ran through pound after pound of the stuff, pouring some mighty impressive designs. After the judges—Brandon, Matt, and I—evaluated the drinks, the many patrons who had come to see the action go down lunged for the lattes and happily threw them back. Baristas who arrived at the party nervous at 7 p.m. were laugh- ing and carrying on with new friends by 9. I loved seeing the top three baristas, all representing different shops, throw their arms around one another after the rankings were announced, compli- ment each others' pours, and even exchange contact information. The brewing competition was successful, as well, and with judges Pete Licata and Turkey's Asli Yaman, who placed third at the 2014 World Brewers Cup, competitors were balls of nerves at the outset. Asli and Pete reassured them, however, that this was all for fun—and just like that, they relaxed. I pulled Hidenori and Stefanos up to the espresso machine at one point and begged them to pour latte art against one another, and the crowd went wild. World Barista Champion versus World Brewers Cup Champion: We were completely stoked to see what would happen. You know what? I barely remember who came out on top. All anyone probably remem- bers is how much fun those two guys had up there. It was the perfect example of community, of how coffee people come together, and why they love it so much. I'm confident those Korean baristas left the party that night inspired. It makes more sense to me now why even though Seoul has tens of thousands of cafés, the coffee community is just starting to take shape. Everything's new; no one's an expert, and so much, so fast can be overwhelming. The Café Show itself, with well over 100,000 people, was daunting even for seasoned coffee-expo attendees—I can't imagine how intimidating it must have been for newcom- ers. Finding pockets of people who share the passion, the pursuit of fun, and the quest for coffee quality, however, proved easier than many of them thought, whether on the show floor, at the WCLF, or at a laid-back coffee party in Gangnam. I'm just so excited to see how far the Seoul coffee community will have come by the time the 14 th Café Show, the fourth WCLF, and hopefully, the second Pancake Epidemic/Stumptown Coffee/La Marzocco Korea/Barista Magazine party takes place in November of 2015. I'm sure it's going to be epic. 34 barista magazine