Barista Magazine

OCT-NOV 2012

Barista Magazine is your home for the worldwide community of coffee and the people who make it.

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BARISTA NATION BRINGS THE HEAT FAMOUS AROUND THE WORLD for its beautiful beaches, weather and people, Los Angeles has beckoned romantics, idealists and creatives to its shores for ages. The city has been a figurative American Calypso calling all eyes to gaze west, saying follow the setting sun and awaken in a brand new world. For generations now, a migration of hopeful believers has set off for California, the Golden State, a place where anyone—with a lot of hard work and a little luck—can make dreams come true. This environment, which encapsulates a market of socially conscious consumers who are willing to spend a little (or a lot) more to enjoy the best life has to offer, can be a fertile ground for specialty coffee. Yet, weird as it sounds, the largest metropolitan region on the West Coast has also for a long time been something of a neglected stepchild for specialty coffee. While the smaller, colder cities up the coast like San Francisco, Seattle and little old Portland, Ore. have gained fame and renown for their coffee scenes, Los Angeles has languished for years, uncharacteristically waiting for its turn in the spotlight. In the last few years, specialty shops and roasters in the Southern California region such as Klatch Coffee and Handsome Coffee Roasters, and SoCal transplants Stumptown Coffee Roasters, Verve Coffee Roasters, and Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea, have taken assertive steps toward bringing specialty to Los Angeles in a big-time way. Even so: In a metropolis packed with tens of millions of people, the potential for specialty coffee is a long way from being fully realized. Barista Nation Los Angeles, which took place in the nearby Mickey Mouse hub of Anaheim on September 15th, brought together the café owners, baristas, and roasters who want to see their region become synonymous with specialty coffee. Their enthusiasm about the mission was one of several ways in which the Los Angeles installment of Barista Nation—a traveling, day-long educational celebration of coffee featuring field experts and the latest equipment—was one of Barista Nation's most successful stops to date. Held for the first time in Southern California, at the allied products distributor Beyond the Grind's warehouse in Anaheim, Barista Nation brought together more than 110 coffee professionals from across the Heather Perry (2003 and 2007 United States Barista Champion, and 2nd place in the 2007 World Barista Championship), and Michael Phillips (2009 and 2010 United States Barista Champion, and 2010 World Barista Champion), weighed in on the panel discussion, "Beyond Espresso." Heather works for her family's established Southern California specialty company, Klatch Coff ee; and Michael is one of the owners of the newcomer Handsome Coff ee Roasters in Los Angeles. Southland. They came to learn, try new equipment and tools, interact with panelists, and most of all mingle with their neighbors. "We really embrace the coffee community, " says Beyond the Grind co-owner Erik Scott. "We wanted to bring people together. You came here [to Barista Nation] because you have a very high passion for your craft, and hopefully everyone will walk way with a little more than they had before. " Erik's wife, Lisa, who co-owns Beyond the Grind adds, "I hope baristas walk away feeling [Barista Nation] was an opportunity to meet with peers, shake hands with people in the industry and gain a better sense of community. " I was lucky enough to have a chance in the days before the event to visit a handful of cafés in the Los Angeles region, from Klatch Coffee in San Dimas to Primo Passo and Caffe Luxxe in Santa Monica. Happily, I would see baristas and shop owners from each stop at the Barista Nation L.A. event. Not only was every one of them excited about the daylong workshop at Beyond the Grind, but they were also talking about future installments of Barista Nation, and how much the Los Angeles region could continue to benefit from them. The response from all attendees was in fact uniformly positive toward the Barista Nation experience. They were impressed with the event, the seminars and the assembly of coffee professionals brought out to Anaheim as panelists and experts. Topics presented at Barista Nation L.A. included a brewing lab led by Brant Curtis of Wilbur Curtis; a discussion on developing roasting profiles with Martin Deidrich from Kean Coffee, Mike Perry from Klatch Coffee, Chuck Patton of Bird Rock Coffee, and Austin Amento from Auggie's Coffee; and a keynote address by Peter Giu liano of the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA). The SCAA's Anne Nylander led a discussion about the rise of specialty coffee in the United States; and a conversation about espresso extraction led by two two-time United States Barista Champions (one of whom is also a World Barista www.baristamagazine.com 45

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