One of our favorite events of the year is the 3-day no-holds-barred Scandinavian throwdown called the Nordic Barista Cup, which kicked off this morning in Copenhagen, Denmark. The event finds five Nordic teams of baristas ”hailing from Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland ”battling it out in a series of intense, intellectual, and also silly battles. The idea is to test the barista teams on how well they work together, how high their level of skill is, and how fully they area able to throw themselves into coffee. While the contests can be harrowing, there are plenty of light moments where everyone– teams included — remembers that coffee is about having fun as a group.
Barista Magazine has enjoyed being a part of the event in person in years past, and 2011 actually marks the first year since 2005 that we haven’t been in attendance! We sure miss the experience, but lucky for us, we can keep up on the Nordic Barista Cup event happenings via the official blog, which you can follow here.
As always, there are more coffee events going on around the world than any two people can attend. Please stay tuned in the next few days as Ken, Barista Mag’s Publisher, reports from the inaugural For the Love of Coffee event in Victoria, B.C. Barista Mag Editor Sarah jets off to Russia this weekend to spend a week with the barista champs of Spain, Italy, Slovania, Greece, Russia, the U.S., and El Salvador ”that would be World Barista Champ Alejandro Mendez, at the Spasskaya Tower international military music festival. Go here for more details. Sarah will blog from the event and also have a story about it in the October/November issue of Barista Magazine.
But today, check out what’s going on in Copenhagen at the always fun Nordic Barista Cup! If history has taught us anything, it’s that something ”or rather, several things ”will happen that are wild and unexpected.
Skol!
