On Sunday it’s the 2010 Danish Barista Championship.
For the first time The Coffee Collective will have a competitor: AnneStine Bae. We’ve had several baristas for the past few years using different coffees roasted by us in the competitions, and of course Morten won last year using our Idido. But this is the first barista who’s working in our own coffee shop to compete. Hats off to AnneStine for that! She’s been working with us since last summer and previously worked for such good places as Estate Coffee and Stockfleths in Olso.

Yesterday we had the grand rehearsal of AnneStine’s presentation. For the past couple of months her training have become more and more intense. Fortunately she decided to compete already back in October and in November her signature drink began to take shape. She’s worked on it together with Troels Trier, who some might remember as the chef that helped create Troels Poulsen’s signature drink for his WBC win back in 2005. ‘Troels the Chef’ has a great understanding of the competition and is a friend of us, so it was very natural for him to help AnneStine make her ideas comes through in the drink.

One of our other baristas, Mathias, is helping her out too. He’s her official coach – a title that requires numerous evenings spent doing the dishes after run-throughs. He’s done a great job so far, and as everyone who’s ever competed will tell you, it’s a priceless help.

The rest of us has been helping out giving advice from our experience in competing. Personally I’ve found it thrilling to be so closely involved in preparing for the competition once again. And I’m so glad to have someone as enthusiastic and talented as AnneStine to train. You wouldn’t think it’s her first time competing from looking at her, but that’s probably because she’s worked as a barista for over 5 years and currently works our bar almost every day.

So on Sunday we had a sort of Dress Rehearsal for her presentation. Copenhagen Roaster had graciously invited us to their training room where Fritz Storm has a Nuova Simonelli espresso machine set up specifically for training that he was more than happy to let us use. Nuova Simonelli is the official WBC sponsor so that’s the machine that will be used in the competition, and it was a great opportunity for AnneStine to get a little more acquainted with this machine.

Furthermore we had some good judges lined up: From CPH Roaster both Mads (current Danish Cupping Champ) and Jakob Dupont. Troels the Chef was there. As technical we had Karen and Casper and finally as head judge past WBC-certified Judge Sigga Dóra Halldorsdottir. Add to that a few spectators and a screaming baby, it was a good setup to shake AnneStine’s nerves.

Her nerves didn’t show up though. She kept her head cool, her shots flowing beautifully and did her presentation well within the timeframe.

Peter has been asked by the Danish chapter of SCAE to be a judge in the championship a few months back, which he agreed to. So that’s why he’s missing from all of this (and I suspect he’s secretly sad for missing all the fun). Since he was asked to judge he hasn’t seen or heard anything about the training out of his own wish to have fresh eyes for all the competitors.

We won’t tell too much about AnneStine’s routine now, but let these picture do the talking:

Now the last week of training and training and more training us upon her and us at the collective. We’re really looking forward to this Sunday and know that no matter how it turns out we’re really proud to have AnneStine up there!

Thanks to Fritz, Mads, Jakob and Copenhagen Roaster for the opportunity to train there. Also thanks to Eva Solo, who has been kind enough to sponsor a lot of things for AnneStine’s presentation.