Our barista Mikaela Wallgren participated in the World Brewers Cup (WBrC) on behalf of Finland. Earlier this year she won the Finish competition for the second time and since then she’s been practicing over and over again to perfect her routine.

Her routine was centered around sweetness. When she grew up she loved candy, specifically the sweet and acidic kind. And years later she recognized that taste sensation in a coffee: Kieni from Kenya. Since then she started working with us and have been brewing Kieni every day for our customers. It’s a coffee she knows intimately and (unlike the trend in these competitions) it’s simply one of our productions roasts, off the shelf, used 16 days after roasting as that gave the best results.

We were already super proud that Mikaela had made it to the finals and the 2nd place sent us through the roof. To make it even more impressive, it was only 0,08 points from first place. Yes, that is zero-point-zero-eight. Unbelievably close. On the final day, Mikaela’s presentation and coffee actually got the highest points of all, but since the compulsory round from day 1 (where the baristas are given a secret coffee to brew) are calculated into the scores, the Japanese competitor Tetsu Kasuya came in just ahead with 155.59 points.

Not only was Mikaela the only woman in the finals, she was also the only one using a washed coffee. Four of the five other finalists were using a Natural processed Geisha variety and the last one a Natural Ethiopian. The fact that a washed Kenyan, production roast actually beat those on the final day goes a long way to show why Kenya, and specifically Kieni, is amongst our favourite coffees.

Mikaela had chosen to brew one cup at a time on the Kalita Wave 155. She used 15 g coffee to 250 ml water @ 96° C and 30 ppm TDS (pure RO water from our shops in Copenhagen) and sieved the grinds to remove fines.

On Friday Mikaela will be showing her technique and giving out free samples of the winning coffee between 15.00 and 16.00 at Torvehallerne. Come by for a chat and a coffee.

All photos courtesy of Black Water Issue