The line-up for the 2012 Nordic Barista Cup has been announced and our very own Tim Wendelboe will be speaking again this year – he will speak on his experiments to improve green quality at origin. The Nordic Barista Cup is one of the premier coffee events of the year and this year there are some exciting changes to the competition.

He’ll be amongst impressive company – Rene Redzepi from Noma, Oliver Strand from the New York Times & James Hoffmann from Square Mile Roasters – to name just a few.

The full line-up of speakers and their profiles are available on the NBC website : www.nordicbaristacup.com

After the fantastic success of the last event we’ve decided to once again help host an evening of totally awesome espresso blends and totally awesome baristas together with the crew at Solberg & Hansen!
Only seconds after announcing the event on twitter the first Australian roastery signed up to send some of their awesome coffee, and within minutes one by one other roasters eagerly offered their coffees for us to taste!

A truly amazing sign of generosity and twitter presence!

Now we need our totally awesome Norwegian baristas (5) and judges.

The idea explained breifly:
1 barista makes shots of 1 espresso blend from 1 Australian roastery
x 5

50 or so “judges” taste the shots and pick their favorite barista/roastery (blend) combo. We then count the scores and pick a winner. All in a good spirit. Unpretentious, good fun and inspiring!

Please send a mail to one of the e-mail adresses on the picture above or comment on this post to sign up.

Date: Thursday 10th of March
Time: 6pm
Place: Solberg & Hansen @ Enebakkveien 125

The roasters:
http://www.axilcoffee.com.au/

http://www.marketlane.com.au/

http://www.cupcoffee.com.au/

http://www.airoasters.com/

http://www.sevenseeds.com.au/

No site for Proud Mary… but this is good…
http://espressomelbourne.com/cafes-that-matter/collingwood/proud-mary/

Next Thursday at 18.00 Solberg & Hansen will be hosting The Totally Awesome International Espresso Blend Barista Battle – American Edition or TTAIEBBB-AE  at S&H in cooperation with us at Tim Wendelboe.

We’d like to invite all of the people of the Oslo coffee scene to come to taste and be the judges in this informal barista/roasters competition.

6 baristas will be working with 1 espresso blend each kindly donated by 6 of the best roasteries in the US.

We will score the barista/roastery combos and pick a winner.

This is a great opportunity for you to taste what’s going on in the specialty coffee business elsewhere in the world and to be inspired by this!

There is a 50 people maximum limit and it’s filled up on a first come first serve basis.

To sign up send an e-mail to tim(at)timwendelboe.no or ola(at)sh.no.

Inspired by Colin, James and Gwilym (via TIm Styles) who has allready published their scoresheets from their WBC finals I started looking for my old sheets from 2004. I found them in a pile of paper on top of my book shelf, so here they are:

Head Judge: Tone Elin Liavaag
Sensory Judge: Sherri Johns
Sensory Judge: Roberto Pregel
Sensory Judge: Inga Schaeper
Sensory judge: Justin Metcalf
Technical Judge: Paul Bassett
Technical Judge: John Sanders

I haven’t had a look at these scoresheets since 2004, and what comes to mind is how much better the scoresheets are today and how much better the competition is now. Back in 2004 there was a lot of silly stuff we had to go through, like setting up the judges table in the competition time and not in the preparation time. Nevertheless. I did not deliver 100% in the finals and therefore scored lower than in the semi-finals. Fortunately I think all 6 finalists had the same nerves as I did, so we all did our honest mistakes. (Like serving luke warm cappuccinos)

I will try to dig up some video footage of the competition as well. If anyone was there and filmed it, please send me a copy.

Tim and I will be going to London this afternoon to watch the 2010 World Barista Championship and the SCAE exhibition.

I will be holding a roasting seminar on thursday morning, while Tim V will be organizing the 2010 World Aeropress Championship.

We are also sponsoring the WBC brew bar with coffee as well as the La Marzocco stand with some Cielito Lindo Espresso.

If you are not able to attend and cheer for our 2010 Norwegian Barista Champion, Oda Misje Haug, make sure you watch it live on the WBC site on thursday at around 2pm.

2010 DAC Champion Marie Hagemeister

A huge congratulations to Marie Hagemeister of Europa in Copenhagen for winning the Danish Aeropress Championships over the weekend. She fought off eight other competitors through three rounds to quite convincingly take 1st place. Her brew was consistently the sweetest and cleanest cup during the competition. Taking second place was Jeppe Hasager from Behag Din Smag. Both Marie and Jeppe have automatic entrance into the WACs in London.

A big thank you to all the sponsors of the event, which included Kontra Coffee, Behag Din Smag, Sigfreds, SCAE Denmark, Marista and most especially Jens and Björg and all the sexy staff of Europa 1989.

Norwegian Barista Competition Finalists

Firstly, a massive congratulations to our Thomas Holme, placing 5th in the Norwegian Barista Championships over the weekend. Thomas has worked incredibly hard over the past few months, and intensified his training over the last few weeks. After winning the Oslo regionals, he worked on various coffees, various roasts, various signature drink components during which we fine tuned his presentation. It is a fantastic achievement, having only worked with coffee for around a year.

Thomas Holme

The young gun, Oda Misje Haug, achieved back to back victories with a confident and refined performance. She showed great composure in the semi finals after spilling an espresso, and being forced to re-do a shot for her signature drink. A chemex brew and 16 shots of espresso seemed a breeze in her 15 minutes. We are very proud and happy she used our roast of the wonderful San Antonio CoE from Guatemala. Look out London!

Oda Misje Haug

More congratulations for Rasmus from Kaffemisjonen in Bergen, who after finishing 21 seconds over time in the semis, pulled together a speedier, yet more concise presentation in the finals and finished in 3rd place. Steinar Svenning from Cuba Life, a wholesale customer of ours, placed 2nd, he roasted his own coffee and gave the judges a fantastic presentation, brimming with charm and refined confidence. Maria Andersson from United Bakeries, who worked with Tim in the run up to the regionals, didn’t show any nerves and delivered a smooth presentation with a delicious passionfruit inspired signature drink. She placed 6th. Taking 4th place was the 3rd of the Kaffemisjonen crew, Magnus Iversen. I missed both his presentations, as i was helping in Thomas’ preparations. What i do know is that he does a killer Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation.

Maria Andersson

We would like to congratulate our full time barista Thomas Holme on his victory in the Norwegian Barista Competition, Oslo qualification. Thomas gave us an excellent presentation and served some spectacular cappuccinos and espressos based on a coffee from Badnekhan Estate.

His delicious signature drink consisted of a milk and espresso foam infused with cinnamon and cloves, topped up with a refreshing lavender milk foam.

We would also like to congratulate Jannicke from Mocca and Maria from United Bakeries on their 2nd and 3rd place which gives them a ticket to the semi finals in the 2010 Norwegian barista championships in April. Well done!

More pictures here: