What Does It Take to Make the Best Coffee in the World?
The six barista finalists hold their trophies. Champion Sasa Sestic of Australia is on the far left. (Photo: World Barista Championship)
Watching somebody make coffee isn’t the most thrilling way to spend an afternoon, but a packed house focused on six competitors as they prepared coffee for a panel of judges in the final round of the 2015 World Barista Championship on Sunday in Seattle. It was the climax of a four-day event that brought 50 national barista champions to the mythic home of America’s coffee scene — the original Starbucks in Pike Place Market was a brisk 10-minute walk from the competition.
After the final shot was pulled, master of ceremonies Stephen Leighton, owner of Has Bean Coffee in the United Kingdom, took the stage in a pair of glittery red shoes that few could pull off, and announced the winner. World, meet your new champion: Sasa Sestic of Ona Coffee in Canberra, Australia.
Yes, there is such a thing as competitive coffee, and it is as goofy as it sounds. Every competitor has 15 minutes in which to make round of espressos, cappuccinos, and “signature drinks” (a free-form category in which the beverage must include coffee and may not include alcohol) for a panel of sensory judges who score taste and presentation, while a panel of technical judges score technique. The points are tallied in a process that aims to be objective, more ice skating than “The Voice.”
But 15 minutes is a long time to watch somebody pull shots and steam milk. To keep things moving, every competitor cues up a playlist and lectures on the what makes that particular coffee unique, like a TED talk with a soundtrack.
You can’t fake the presentation — it takes work to impress a hall filled with thousands of coffee professionals. Which is one of the reasons why the competition is taken so seriously within the industry. If you win, it’s because you have something to say. Since the World Barista Championship was first held in 2000, the competition has launched the careers of some of the leading figures in coffee today, former baristas who now run some of the most innovative roasters, and coffee importers in the business.
“We put a bow in their hair and ask the judges if they like the bow,” Leighton said of the competitors. “You peacock around but then you can go on stage and try things you haven’t tried before. It’s a time to show off new ideas. You ask yourself, ‘Would you do that in a shop? I don’t know, but I want to try.’”
Sestic’s new idea was to draw a direct connection between the flavors of coffee and wine. Working with Camilo Merizalde, a coffee grower in Cauca, Colombia, Sestic used a technique popular within the cutting-edge winemakers and processed the coffee fruit with carbonic maceration, fermenting the sugar-rich pulp in a sealed vessel filled with carbon dioxide. When you drink the fresh, fruity red wines of Beaujolais, you’re tasting the effects of carbonic maceration.
Carbonic maceration is a weird, radical move within the world of coffee. Chances are you’re not going to find it at the coffee shop down the street any time soon, but the whole point of the World Barista Championship is to explore ideas so far ahead of the curve that they wow an informed audience.
Sestic is an intense competitor. A former handball player who represented Australia in the 2000 Olympics, Sestic spent more than 500 hours practicing his routine. He said he entered the World Barista Championship to test his own theories about what could be done with coffee, and because he wanted to work closely with farmers — Sestic’s official title at Ona Coffee is Bean Hunter. “I’m not doing this for my brand,” Sestic said. “It’s not marketing. I’m coming here to show what I believe in, and it’s that we can do so much more with the farmers.”
Sestic edged out American champion Charles Babinski of G & B Coffee and Go Get Em Tiger, both in Los Angeles. Below is a full list of the six finalists, the ones to watch in coming years.
1.Sasa Sestic, Australia. Ona Coffee (Canberra).
2. Charles Babinski, United States. G&B Coffee and Go Get Em Tiger, (Los Angeles).
3. Ben Put, Canada. Monogram Coffee (Calgary).
4. Chan Kwun Ho, Hong Kong. The Cupping Room (Hong Kong).
5. Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, United Kingdom. Colonna & Small’s (Bath).
6. Charlotte Malaval, France. No affiliation.
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