"Welcome to Five Senses Coffee"

The Australian barista world is buzzing in the lead up to the Australian Barista Championships which will see winners from each of the State competitions battle it out for the crown of Australian Barista Champion and an opportunity to represent Australia at the World Barista Championships in Copenhagen in June.

Winning the title of Barista Champion at either the State, national or world level can be a pretty lucrative thing these days. Paul Bassett, the Australian who won the World Title in 2003, is now the face of Sunbeam Coffee Café Series home espresso machines across the country and has his name on two cafés in Tokyo.

Likewise, subsequent World Barista Champions have leveraged their success and in varying degrees are now forging great careers peddling their coffee knowledge and expertise across the globe. I say good on them!

Understandably, much of the attention is bestowed on the victors of the competitions, but it is probably worth spending some time looking at the effect that the competition is having on baristas as a whole. To give some context, the differences in ability between the winner of a competition and the other place getters are very subtle. No one in the competition, including the organisers, judges or competitors, has any idea who has won until all the scoresheets are tallied and scores calibrated. Interested and reasonably expert spectators are normally only able to make a ‘best guess’ on who they think put on the best performance and which few competitors are likely to be real contenders. Because many of the points are given for the taste of the coffee as measured by the judges, everyone finds out the result at the same time — that is, when the announcement is made.

What this really serves to highlight is the fact that there is a large and growing number of incredibly good baristas out there all across the world who are starting to ply their trade very seriously. The difference in skill between the top place getters and the winners of the competitions is barely discernible. Five years ago, hardly anyone had even heard the word barista and even less would consider it a possibility for a career. In most people’s minds it was probably in the same category of importance as an ice cream or meat pie server at their local deli and in truth there are still hundreds of people out there making coffee who should probably make the career shift into their local deli and work as a pie server!

Generally speaking though, there is now an increasingly large and growing group of savvy hospitality operators who recognise the value of an expert barista. They also realise that there is an ever increasing number of fussy coffee drinking consumers and they’ve worked out (it isn’t rocket science!) that if they use premium fresh roasted coffee and employ a professional, experienced and excellent barista to drive their machine they will end up presiding over a match made in heaven — a barista who loves and knows how to make great coffee and a customer who loves drinking coffee and is willing to pay for it!

The specialty coffee revolution is also opening up tons of opportunity for baristas to wander the world. Desire for excellently made coffee is pretty universal so obviously it stands to reason that the desire for sensational baristas across the world is similarly high. These days, a well worn tamper has become akin to a well thumbed passport. Only last month I bumped into a barista in Tokyo’s Paul Bassett Café, Asako Suga, who had spent time behind the machine in the Piccalo brothers’ Artigiano Café’s in Vancouver. I’ve also just got word that Jeremy, WA’s 2006 Barista Champ who ended up behind the machine at Epic Espresso, is now working his magic on the streets of Paris behind a coffee machine at Alto Cafe that we featured a couple of months ago.

The world is getting smaller and the desire for great baristas will continue to rise. I personally know of quite a few people with either university degrees or professional careers (or both) who have forsaken all of this in pursuit of a life in the world of coffee.

Unsure? Pick up a tamper and have a go …