Louisville Barista Bash 004 Recap

Written by Lee Sill on Dec 9th, 2010

Several days have passed, yet the satisfaction of such a great bash still lingers! I believe it was a great event for the Louisville coffee community. Friday evening felt more like we were hanging and geeking out in someone's home than in a shop setting. We want to give big thanks to Anchorage Cafe for being such accommodating hosts. You guys were awesome and were so open to our requests and crazy ideas!

Not enough gratitude can be given to Jaime van Schyndel of Barismo for taking the time away from his family and Barismo in Arlington to fly down to Louisville. He is seriously one of the most brilliant coffee minds out there, and we were so impressed to have him grace our humble get together. Most everyone I know in Louisville who is involved with manual brew methods and small batch roasting has learned from or been influenced by Barismo, either through the blog or the several Barismo brew method videos out there.

The evening was a blast. It was unbelievable how many excellent coffees we had given to us from so many generous roasters. These included Counter Culture, PT's, Intelligentsia, 49th Parallel, La Grange, Espresso Guild, and of course, Barismo. There were many shots pulled, as well as several Chemexes, V60s, and syphons brewed throughout the night. And plenty of folks were able to take some coffee home that night and experience a coffee or roaster for the first time! Thanks to Barista Magazine and Barista Guild of America for donating prizes, and to La Grange Coffee Roasters for the sweet gift basket as a door prize!

Congratulations to the finalists in the Best Cup Competition! Phil Revell, a barista at Quills Coffee came in third place using a Kenyan bean that he home roasted, brewed with a V60. Second place went to Jesse Harriott of Sunergos Coffee. Jesse used a Honduran coffee that was a finalist in the Cup of Exellence last year, also brewing with the V60. And first place and the grand prize went to Chris Heiniger, who is also a part time barista and home roaster and an all together fun coffee guy. Chris chose a natural processed Panama coffee roasted by PT's. It is from the Elida estate and possibly the most delicious natural I've ever had. Chris chose the Eva Solo as his brewing method, creatively using two grind settings and two brewing parameters in the same Solo to bring out different notes, and the presentation was near flawless, with menus and custom mugs. Enjoy the Preciso Chris!

Thanks to all of you who came out and who regularly come out and support these events. Thanks to our judges, Jaime of Barismo, Chris Cockrell of La Grange Coffee Roasters, and Matt Argo of Anchorage Cafe and Argo Sons Coffee. You guys did a great job! Also we want to thank John, a.k.a. hermitudinous, for all your help and for your persistence in upping the quality and education of coffee in Louisville. Thanks to Emily Sill, a barista at Anchorage, for emceeing the event for us. Somehow I knew you'd be a natural! And lastly, thanks to Brian Moats and Jenni Sieg for the wonderful photography and allowing us to use it on the blog!

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Customer Reviews

Submitted by lachris on Thu, 12/09/2010 - 13:21

I think we should have given away a "Best Hat" award!!! Phil, John, Lee...Nice lids guys! It was a truly great night!

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