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

The Kenyan coffee harvest is just ending and we will be going to Kenya in January to taste this years harvest. In the meantime, while we are waiting for the new crop to arrive, I thought I would publish a video I filmed during the harvest in 2010. Hope you like it.

Here is a short video from my lecture at Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza in September this year. We have bought 130 bags of natural processed coffees from them and their partners, among them Joao Hamilton at Sitio Canaa. All coffees are amazing and very clean. Not the usual natural from Brazil, that’s for sure. I even cupped a couple of coffees above 90 points this year, but most of them ranging from 86 to 89 points. That is a great score for naturals and also among the highest scoring coffees in my entire Brazil trip this year.

There is a small mistake in the intro of the video. I have only been World Barista Champion once, not twice as stated in the video. I guess that was lost in translation by the director.

Enjoy!

I just visited Sitio Canaa to see how Joao Hamilton is doing. He just finished his harvest and had done a lot of experiments that we tasted later in the afternoon. My good friend Felipe Croce is translating.

Felipe is now managing the quality control and experiments at Fazenda Ambiental Fortaleza that is also partners with Joao Hamilton among others.

In my opinion these guys are producing the very best coffees coming out of Brazil at the moment. I will for sure write a little bit more about that later, but for now you can enjoy the interview I did with Joao Hamilton on his farm.

Interview with Joao Hamilton at Sitio Canaa, Brazil from Tim Wendelboe on Vimeo.

A lot of people have e-mailed me asking where they could see the lecture on Nordic Coffee Culture I did during the Nordic Barista Cup.
The lecture is finally uploaded to the Nordic Barista Cup VIMEO account. I highly suggest that you check out all the lectures there as they are both inspirational and educational.

Here is the one I did:
(PS. Due to a tape change  the lecture is cut a bit short at the end.)

Nordic Barista Cup Talks – Tim Wendelboe: Nordic Coffee Culture from Nordic Barista Cup on Vimeo.

Here is a very inspiring lecture by Pontus Dahlström done last weekend during the Nordic Barista Cup.

Pontus is one of the owners of MAAEMO in Oslo, which is a fantastic restaurant that focuses on local and seasonal food. They teamed up with us a while ago to develop their coffee service and are currently serving our Caballero coffee brewed with the traditional steeping method called kokekaffe.

A perfect example of how to lift the coffee service in a restaurant to become a great taste experience as well as a more profitable part of the dinner for MAAEMO.

NBC Talks – Pontus Dahlstrøm: The Nordic Approach from Nordic Barista Cup on Vimeo.

YOu can see all the lectures from this years NBC here.