Barista Magazine

DEC 2012-JAN 2013

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

Issue link: http://baristamagazine.epubxp.com/i/96027

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 45 of 87

ANNUAL MANE CONFERENCE SETS THE BAR Photos by Jake Casella PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND BY SIMON OUDERKIRK ANNUAL M ANE CONF E RE NC E SE TS THE B AR F OR BARI S TA EV ENTS THE SIXTH ANNUAL Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Coffee Conference (affectionately nicknamed MANE) quietly took place in early October, occupying five rooms in a reclaimed mill just north of Providence, R.I. The buses ran as usual; for most folks it was an early-autumn weekend in New England, remarkable only for its clear skies. For a lucky bunch of coffee people, however, this weekend is the biggest weekend of the year. It's not a large group, to be sure—attendees numbered in the neighborhood of 150—but for those attendees, MANE provides a unique and exceptional means to your coffee ends, whatever those ends may be. Exceptional here is not journalistic hyperbole: Where else can an event this size attract the finest minds of an industry? The three most recent keynote speakers include two former World Barista Champions (WBC) and the editor of this very publication (James Hoffmann, Gwilym Davies, and Sarah Allen, respectively). Pugilistically, MANE punches up a weight class. It is the Nordic Barista Cup (NBC) for hourly baristas, the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) Symposium for folks who still collect tips. It's worth noting that the continued survival of this event is no small feat; Gerra Harrigan, director of business development at New Harvest Coffee, should be recognized as one of the quiet miracle workers of progressive coffee. She has been able to weave together schedules and 46 barista magazine volunteers into a low-cost, barista-friendly conference that can attract topflight presenters and cutting-edge sponsorships, and for that we owe her a debt of thanks. The structure of MANE is not unusual: It runs Friday through Sunday, with each day containing both panel discussions as well as smaller breakoutstyle classes. It is the quality of this content that is unusual. Presenters and panelists in 2012 included barista trainers, green buyers, importers, roasters, and, for the first time, visitors from a producing nation: Benjamin Paz Muñoz of Beneficio San Vicente, and coffee farmer Adolfo Reyes Portillo of the Santa Barbara region of Honduras. Drinking a cup of coffee roasted by the man seated next to you while watching the importer, processor, and farmer discuss that very coffee is a singular experience, and it was a gift for every person at MANE. To have the entire trade circle boiled down to a single cup, a single room, is remarkable, and has a value all its own. There is a space for everyone at MANE. A barista can take classes in latte art and hand brewing; a roaster can attend a much-lauded workshop on fermentation led by our current United States Barista Champion, Katie Carguilo, and an introduction to microlots; and a manager can share ideas during the open-forum Office Hours and hear how to maintain his espresso machine from the folks who spend all day elbow-deep in gaskets and wrenches. Participants chose their classes at registration, making it easy to match interests with the programming. The class offerings ran the gamut from the microscopically specific (two hours straight of AeroPress theory and practice) to the broadly philosophical ("(Don't) Come to the Dark Side," a panel discussing the role of roast levels in our industry). MANE can be as hands-on as you choose, or it can be as heady and macro as you'd like. If there was a single theme with which we could connect the many

Articles in this issue

view archives of Barista Magazine - DEC 2012-JAN 2013
subscribe to email alerts