Written by James Hoffman
Photos by Daniel Mullery

One of the most enjoyable aspects of barista competition for me happens outside of the performance. Creating and developing an espresso blend is something many baristas never get the chance to do, whether for use in the shop on a daily basis, or up on the competition stage.

Many roasters believe that the blend recipe should be kept secret. The goals of many blends are to be consistent in taste profile, despite changing ingredients, and to hit a price point. Therefore the opinion of baristas is rarely solicited. This changes for competition, as the blend is a tool for the barista and he or she may have specific demands with a view to the coffee performing well under the set brewing conditions and hence scoring well under the criteria used by the judges.

Hence you do not necessarily need to worry about the blend’s mass appeal, nor whether or not it will “work” with large amounts of milk. The greatest freedom for me is that the blend will never be bought or sold, so the financial constraints are not the same. You can create your competition espresso for taste and taste alone.

My opinion about being a barista, and certainly one in competition, is that you are only as good as the coffee you use. There are no skills you can learn that will allow you to turn an average blend into an incredible shot, so I have always been involved in the coffee I compete with as much as I can. From my first competition heat onwards I have made the final decisions on which coffees would make the blend, and decided what the blend was trying to achieve.

I work for an espresso machine company, La Spaziale, in the UK and therefore have no attachments to any particular roaster or coffee. I do, however, have a great relationship with the importers, Mercanta, who gave me free reign over their entire stock while I worked to create my blend for the 2006 World Barista Championship (WBC) in Bern, Switzerland. With well over 100 coffees, mostly single estate and many single varietal, there was simply too much to chose from. I knew there is no way to eliminate them one by one, but equally I was wary to dismiss anything—even the robustas—in case my preconceptions excluded something that would in fact taste incredible. So for the 2006 competition the experimentation began about three or four months before my first heat, which took place towards the end of January this year. Ideas came initially from the cupping table. Occasionally I would cup a coffee and wonder how it would taste as espresso, whether its body or its sweetness would carry over in the same way. Sometimes it would, sometimes not. Whilst I always knew what I liked, it took a while for me to develop a confidence in my opinion of a coffee as an espresso. I would look to both my employers and also to the people at Mercanta for reassurance. As I started to debate a coffee and its merits or shortcomings I developed the missing confidence in what I wanted, and began to trust myself more.

For my regional heat I made a big mistake. I decided to roast the coffees myself. I had decided on a very basic flavor profile that I was aiming for: sweet, low acidity and lots of nutty flavors, with maybe a little bit of fruit. My efforts with a two-drum Probat sample roaster were simply not good enough, but by the time I had realized this, the competition was 48 hours away, and I figured I would just have to do the best I could. Thankfully I got through the regional and won, though all the judges told me they were somewhat disappointed with the quality of the espresso. It hadn’t been bad, they said, they had just hoped for more.

Having learned from that first mistake, I began to work with Steve Leighton of HasBean Coffee. I’d known Steve for a little while and loved the coffees he roasted and sold. He was also very excited about the idea of creating something for the national finals, which were only a month away.

There are many different reasons to choose a coffee for your blend. The most obvious is taste, and that always has the most influence. If, however, you are faced with dozens and dozens of coffees, all of which you would be happy to use, you have to find a way to narrow it down further. I decided I wanted every coffee I used to be traceable down to the farm and to also be single varietal lots. I wanted to be able to talk about the coffee I was producing for the judges, so the more information there was about each of the coffees I was using the better.

Anxious to learn more about building a competition blend? Then order this back issue of Barista Magazine!