Saturday, June 3, 2006
New York City

After two years of working the bar at Gimme! Coffee’s Brooklyn location, I started to look for new vistas to learn coffee. The coffee scene on the East Coast is very small and effectively fractured. Sadly, there is an Us vs. Them feeling among the handful of cafés trying to do good work in this city. With no friendly harbor, I was open to widening my search.

Since we all know that the Scandinavians have dominated the World Barista Championships (WBC), with six of the seven champs coming from Denmark and Norway, I started to wonder what exactly was going on over there. Screw it! I thought. I’ll go there and train and see for myself. So, after six months, 40-plus emails, countless days of subsisting on peanut butter sandwiches, scrounging every possible quarter from the tipjar, and some generous donations from my lovely girlfriend, it is finally happening. I am going to Norway to train with Tim Wendelboe. Through our correspondence I made sure that Tim understood this was not about competition, but rather, I wanted to “take apart” espresso. I wanted to learn the whys behind the hows.

When I told Kevin Cuddeback, the owner and impresario of Gimme! Coffee, about my plan, he jumped at the opportunity to join me. With Kevin onboard, the trip became a concrete reality. We also decided to expand the trip to include an espresso bar tour of Iceland and Norway, three cities, some 10 cafés and the largest specialty roaster in Norway. Right now though, it’s 5:30 a.m., and I still have to get through my Saturday bar shift. No problem, because I know that at the end of the line of drinks is an airplane.

Sunday, June 4, 2006
Reykjavik, Iceland

The plane touches down at Keflavik Airport at 6:30 a.m. Sleepy and somewhat disoriented, we gather our luggage and catch the bus into the city. This is our only day in Reykjavik, so when our host confirms it is a holiday and businesses will open late if at all, we decide to make the most of the meantime, by napping for an hour. Five hours later, we groggily head into town.

The Icelandic landscape is truly otherworldly and mesmerizing. The steel blue sea meets a land comprised of jagged blacks and soft greens all blanketed by a sky of feathery gray. This is the kind of scenery that calls you in. It ignites the inner explorer.

Holiday here means Holiday. Everything is closed. We walk to the first espresso bar on the agenda, Kaffitár. Closed. We head a little further to Te og Kaffi. Closed. Bummed, we roam Reykjavik. On our way back to the guesthouse, Kevin spots Segafredo. It’s open! We are excited because, well, it’s open, but also because 2003 WBC 2nd place finisher, Ása Petterson, manages the place.

We enter just after a rush, and the baristas are scrambling to clean up. Despite the frantic pace, a barista greets us with friendliness and attentiveness. She starts our shots, then leaves to finish something elsewhere. The portafilter isn’t tight in the group, so it starts to leak. She quickly notices and remakes the shots. Setting them on the counter, she confesses it is only her third day. We mention we are on a coffee tour, to which the barista replies, “Ása was here earlier. She would have loved to chat.” If only we’d noticed Segafredo when we passed hours earlier!
 

Want to read about where Chris goes next? Then order this back issue of Barista Magazine!