Canadian Barista Championship, Montreal, Oct 21-22, 2008

Here are the final results (courtesy of John Manzo) of the Canadian Barista Championship held in Montreal on October 21-22 in conjunction with the Canada Coffee & Tea Show. Six of the 14 first round competitors qualified for the final:

1.	Sammy Piccolo	Caffè Artigiano	Vancouver, BC	569.5 pts
2.	Spencer Vieghweger	JJ Bean Coffee	Vancouver, BC	562.0 pts
3.	Joel May	Fratello Coffee Company	Calgary, AB	555.5 pts
4.	Chad Moss	Transcend Coffee	Edmonton, AB	551.5 pts
5.	Phil Robertson	Phil & Sebastian Coffee	Calgary, AB	527.5 pts
6.	Anthony Benda	Café Myriade	Montreal, QC	517.5 pts

The winner for the fourth time is Sammy Piccolo, who is both the Manager of Caffè Artigiano’s Burnaby (Vancouver) location and an owner (together with his brothers Michael and Vince) of 49th Parallel Roasters, also located in Vancouver. Sammy will represent Canada at the next World Barista Championship planned for April 16-19, 2009 in Atlanta, Georgia. He placed an unprecedented 2nd, 3rd and 2nd at the 2004, 2005 and 2006 World Barista Championships (three consecutive top 3 finishes). He did not compete after the 2006 WBC, and the following two years, Colter Jones and Mike Yung represented Canada at the WBC, with Colter placing a strong 7th in 2007 and Mike finishing an excellent 5th at the WBC earlier this year. Both Colter and Mike represented Caffè Artigiano (Mike is still there and Colter moved on to 49th Parallel Roasters). In summary, the Caffè Artigiano “barista gang” will have represented Canada for 6 consecutive years at the World Barista Championships! Wow!

Congratulations to all of the competitors for elevating the quality of specialty coffee and exhibiting a true passion for your craft. Chad Moss and Anthony Benda may be a little disappointed with their placings (Chad won the 2004 South Australia regional barista competition; Anthony placed a fantastic 3rd at the Canadian Barista Championship in 2007 as a first-time competitor), but we congratulate both on their achievement to train for months and represent their artisan craft so well. Both Chad and Anthony competed with Terra Keramik espresso cups and cappuccino cups, as did Laura Perry (who unfortunately missed the finals) of Bridgehead Coffeehouses in Toronto. We thank you for placing your trust in our handcrafted, eco-friendly “competition grade” products. We also have a special partnership with Anthony (full disclosure!), who provides content for our online marketplace, including videos, recipes and tips around everything that is coffee and espresso.

And of course John Manzo would like me to mention that Western Canada continues to rule (see his blog) the Canadian coffee scene barista competitions (sorry Anthony!). 🙂

We also encourage you to check out the archived video coverage available at ustream.tv, as well as Liz Clayton’s coverage of the competition and Anthony Benda’s wrapup.

Canadian Barista Championship, Montreal, Oct 21-22, 2008

Just a quick interim post with the first round results of the Canadian Barista Championship being held in Montreal on October 21-22 in conjunction with the Canada Coffee & Tea Show. Sixteen baristi competed (4 baristi from each of 4 regional competitions), and this is the first year that all baristi qualified for the national competition via regional competitions (no open entries like in the past).

The top six baristi from the first round who qualified for the finals (starting at 12 noon Eastern Time on Tuesday, October 22) are as follows (in no particular order):

Joel May	Fratello Coffee Company	Calgary, AB
Spencer Vieghweger	JJ Bean Coffee	Vancouver, BC
Anthony Benda	Café Myriade	Montreal, Quebec
Chad Moss	Transcend Coffee	Edmonton, AB
Phil Robertson	Phil & Sebastian Coffee	Calgary, AB
Sammy Piccolo	Caffè Artigiano	Vancouver, BC

Notable is that that 5 out of the 6 finalists hail from Western Canada, with Anthony Benda the only representative from the Eastern part of the country. Many will point out that this wouldn’t necessarily reflect the quickly changing Eastern and Central landscape for specialty coffee in Canada, which has many excellent roasters, cafes and baristi (Montreal alone has several top cafes, including Cafe Sante Veritas, Anthony’s former employer, and his soon to open Cafe Myriade).

Video coverage (live streaming and archived videos) is available at ustream.tv.

We’re BAAACK!!!

We’ve been busy the past 6 months growing and expanding our online marketplace at terrakeramik.com and although we continue to be busy (especially with the holiday season only a few weeks away), we are excited to share with you some of the things we’re doing on this blog. We’ll be posting in the next few days, so check back! Thanks.

Buon Amici’s Coffee Special Promotion

Buon Amici’s Coffee of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada is offering an exciting limited time promotion:

Derek Lucas, co-owner of Buon Amici’s Coffee, is one of Canada’s leading baristi. He won the 2007 Canadian Western Regional Barista Championship and placed 6th at the 2007 Canadian National Barista Championship. Derek purchased a small lot of the Esmeralda Special Geisha coffee, which was auctioned by La Hacienda Esmeralda of Panama on May 29, 2007 at a record $130 per pound of green (unroasted) coffee beans. Derek had used our Terra Keramik espresso and cappuccino cups during the 2007 Canadian Barista Championship, and we are thrilled that he chose to serve the Esmeralda Special Geisha coffee to his customers in Terra Keramik cups.

Buon Amici’s Coffee
Unit 110-645 Tyee Road
Victoria, BC V9A 6X5
Canada

www.buonamicis.com

You better hurry, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to enjoy this amazing coffee served in Terra Keramik cups!!!

Canadian Barista Championship, Toronto, Sep 16-17

Just a quick late post with the results of the Canadian Barista Championship held in Toronto on September 16-17 in conjunction with the Canada Coffee & Tea Show.

The results of the finals (6 best baristi from the open round and 2 regional champions) are as follows:

1st	Mike Yung	Caffe Artigiano	Vancouver, BC
2nd	Cady Wu	Wicked Cafe	Vancouver, BC
3rd	Anthony Benda	Café Santé Veritas	Montreal, Quebec
4th	Colter Jones	Caffè Artigiano	Vancouver, BC
5th	Mark Krause	Espresso Post	Collingwood, Ontario
6th	Derek Lucas	Buon Amici’s Coffee	Victoria, BC
7th	Brette Richard	2% Jazz	Victoria, BC
8th	Kimberly Staveley	Matter of Taste	Kitchener, Ontario

Both Mike Yung, the winner, and Anthony Benda, the 3rd place finisher, are first time competitors.  Colter Jones, the defending 2006 CNBC Champion, finished 4th. Colter had placed a strong 7th at the World Barista Championship held in Tokyo in July. Mike Yung will represent Canada at the 2008 WBC.

With the Canadian Barista Championship, Terra Keramik continued to supply several competing baristi with our line of handcrafted espresso cups and cappuccino cups. We appreciate the trust placed in our products by Anthony Benda (Café Santé Veritas), Colter Jones (Caffè Artigiano), Andrew Legg (Transcend Coffee), and Jeremie Thompson (Bridgehead Coffeehouses), all of whom competed with our cups.

Andrew Legg and Poul Mark have started a Transcend Coffee blog with photos of the Canadian Barista Championship. Also check out the Dwelltime coffee blog of Barrett Jones, himself a top Canadian barista and brother of Colter.

Several people have posted competition photos on flickr, including Liz Clayton (who wrote a nice article for Barista Magazine), Rich Westerfield of Aldo Coffee, Poul Mark of Transcend Coffee, and James Hoffmann, the current WBC champion.