World Barista Championship 2009 - G'luck ch2008!

Mr Magnolia

The lads are flying out to Atlanta on Tuesday morning.

Forum regular and 2009 Irish Barista Champion ch2008 is heading out to represent Irish interests accompanied by an elite, caffeinated crew.

May all your espressos be God Shots.

Enjoy!

Live feeds should be available here: http://www.worldbaristachampionship.com/

hshortt

Fair play guys, best of luck with the competition and I hope to see lots of Video on the return. Fingers crossed for you ch2008!

You too RE*AC*TOR!

Cheerio
Howard

eclectichoney

Good luck ch2008!

Mish

Kannon

good luck lads. have a great buzz! take it down ch2008...

SeaSide

Come home in victory or come home on your shield.







no pressure

Slaphead07

Good Luck CH,
from your caffinated customers by the CHQ.

Gran Hermano

Best of luck ch2008!

RE*AC*TOR

Thanks for all the kind words guys.

Colin is on first up on Saturday morning, which is the last day of the semis. Finals on Sunday.

I'm sure we'll check in from Atlanta before Saturday.

Mr Magnolia

Good that he's up on Saturday, I should have uninterupted viewing once the streaming is ok.

ch2008

Thanks for the kind words guys, much appreciated. If I remember/dont tank I'll give you guys a "shout out". Its an American thing. I'm down with it...:pac:
Anyway, if your on Twitter (which is great for coffee nerds) you can follow me @dublinbarista or follow himself at @otherblackstuff.

Updates as well hopefully on the blog and Hasbean steve has a surprise on www.hasbean.co.uk this week so keep an eye out. The coffee is incredible so gonna go do my best and hope to have a larf along the way.

Thanks again guys,
colin

RE*AC*TOR

First full day in Atlanta today. Very spread-out city, not suitable for walking from point A-B. Had some coffee in Octane this morning, which was stellar. They use Counter Culture. Had a cappa made with a fruity sidamo, and a few french presses of different stuff. Very cool place.
Then it was on to Wal Mart to pick up some supplies. Wal Mart isn't a great experience when you have a disparate shopping list and don't know where anything is.
Have our first meeting in about 90mins, with all the other baristas and the competition organisers. Should be first view of the SCAA floor also.

Mr Magnolia

Sounds great so far.

alastair

Coming in late with the good wishes, but best of luck!

Saw Colin driving the Piaggio up the NCR last Thursday - didn't realise they lived out my neck of the woods!

Oh, and came back from Belfast to a burgled house yesterday - thankfully they didn't bother with larger items - just laptops, photographic gear, cash, iPods, jewelery, watches, etc - so Silvia was left untouched.

RE*AC*TOR

Some photos from Colin's flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/colindublinbarista/

IsThatSo?

Photos are great, but stop teasing us

Hope all goes well for Colin on Saturday

IsThatSo?

alastair wrote: »

Oh, and came back from Belfast to a burgled house yesterday - thankfully they didn't bother with larger items - just laptops, photographic gear, cash, iPods, jewelery, watches, etc - so Silvia was left untouched.

:eek:

The heathens would not understand good coffee, luckily. Sorry to hear about the rest of the stuff, its not a nice feeling at all

eclectichoney

Yeah, happened me before Alaister so I now how awful it feels

At least you still have the Silvia I guess

hshortt

@RE*AC*TOR thanks for the updates, hope everything goes great for you guys at the weekend.

@Alaister, that's a real pain in the backside. I hope that you can sort it all out without too much stress. I'd probably have to be sedated if this happened to me.

Cheers

alastair

Cheers for that folks.

I see Coffee Angel are hosting a support bash for Colin on Saturday - with streaming video and coffee tasting.

http://www.coffeeangel.com/index2.php

Might head over if I've got a new alarm set up in the gaff

RE*AC*TOR

Some more pics here guys http://www.flickr.com/photos/theotherblackstuff/
Today is our official practice time (in about 3.5 - 4 hours time). So this will be crucial. Make sure the coffee is in order etc.

alastair

I'm sure someone meant to mention it, but Has Bean are flogging the beans Colin is competing with at a special price this weekend.

https://www.hasbean.co.uk/products/Why-Is-Has-Bean-Green.html

edit: gotta laugh at Has Bean's turnaround - ordered some of the above beans, both green and roasted, and a blank basket. Time taken from hitting submit button to flagged as shipped? 30 minutes. Steve's not even there to crack the whip!

hshortt

Thanks for that too Alastair, just ordered a couple of bags. Delighted to see the support for Colin extending.

Cheers

Mr Magnolia

Very sorry to hear that alastair, must be a nightmare. Hopefully ye can put it behind you alright.

RE*AC*TOR, the photos are beautiful, great shots.

Just catching up on some blogs and making my way through the photos. Be watching later ch2008.

eclectichoney

Thanks for the heads up about hasbean, will def order a few bags later today.

Lovely photos Reactor

Roll on 4:15pm!

davej

Yes good luck ch2008
I watched a little bit of the competition yesterday and at some points the streaming wasn't great (freezing up). Others in the chatroom were also complaining about it.
Hopefully all will be ok today.

davej

Slaphead07

I wasn't able to see Colin's performance.... and news?

Gran Hermano

Likewise, am out enjoying the sun but checking here via mobile. Keep us posted.

Fingers have been crossed all day.

eclectichoney

Couldn't get the stream to work unfortunately - too much traffic I'd say

alastair

eclectichoney wrote: »

Couldn't get the stream to work unfortunately - too much traffic I'd say

Caught Colin's speciality and his chat afterwards, and the video was okay on and off until the US contestant, when it all fell over (presumably because of local bandwidth demand?).

Colin seemed to be battling nerves, and there were a couple of spills, but what I saw of the coffee looked the business.

Best of luck tomorrow!

Mr Magnolia

Anytime I check(ed) the stream it's either 'not available' or it'll run for a while and then freeze leaving the sound running, very frustrating,

alastair

Colin goes into the 6 finalists!

Well done that man!

RE*AC*TOR

Hey guys. What a crazy day. Colin's performance was great today.
We're all thrilled to be on again tomorrow. Sorry the stream is crap.

Will catch up in more depth at a later point.

Mr Magnolia

Great stuff, very well done Colin. Has anyone got the schedule for today?

Mr Magnolia

alastair wrote: »

I'm sure someone meant to mention it, but Has Bean are flogging the beans Colin is competing with at a special price this weekend.

https://www.hasbean.co.uk/products/Why-Is-Has-Bean-Green.html

edit: gotta laugh at Has Bean's turnaround - ordered some of the above beans, both green and roasted, and a blank basket. Time taken from hitting submit button to flagged as shipped? 30 minutes. Steve's not even there to crack the whip!

link borked :-(

Wonder is it all gone?

RE*AC*TOR

Colin is on 6th of 6. Not 100% sure of the times, I think the first competitor is on around 12 Atlanta time - so 5 GMT?

Need to double check.

Mr Magnolia

I'll check myself too, thanks RE*AC*TOR, have fun & good luck!

SeaSide

unborked link

http://www.hasbean.co.uk/products/Why-Is-Has-Bean-Green%3F.html

arabica69

Proceedings should start at 1700 GMT -

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/2009-world-barista-championship.

Let hope the audio & video feeds are well sorted for the finale!

Good luck Colin et al!!!!

hshortt

Excellent stuff!!! Well done Colin, go on ya good thing!

Mr Magnolia

The stream seems ok at the minute. Michael Phillips the USA champ is up at the minute.

Lee Jong Hoon (RoKorea) is next, then the UK Champ Gwilym Davies followed by our own Colin Harmon at 19:55.

alastair

If the ustream video is freezing, there's a lower bandwidth stream on justin.tv that's much better - at the expense of image quality.

Dero

Good luck Colin!

Mr Magnolia

ustream is ok for me at the moment.

/crosses fingers

Slaphead07

Minutes from Colin's moment! In fairness he has nothing to lose, getting this far is an amazing achievement. Of course I wouldn't tell him that just yet!

Mr Magnolia

SeaSide wrote: »

unborked link

http://www.hasbean.co.uk/products/Why-Is-Has-Bean-Green%3F.html

Thanks for that. When the lads said they were going to talk to Steve from hasbean about the WBC I suggested they consider this Machacamarca, it was one of my favourite coffees from last year, they ended up running with it.

I wonder is this the same roast profile as the one Colin's using as I believe they may have used a lighter roast for the WBC than the standard HB roast with this bean, I'll wait for this to be confirmed.

Mr Magnolia

Starting to break up for me with Gwilym on. His microphone is too loud for a start.

eclectichoney

Mine is the same Mr Magnolia - breaking up a lot

Mr Magnolia

Juston tv is down, the ustream link is not too bad..

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/2009-world-barista-championship

Mr Magnolia

FFS, lost my connection and can't get back up, is he up yet? Anyone got an alternate link please?

Mr Magnolia

Got it back very flakey at the minute though.

SeaSide

got a good feed on Justin