I met Richard Sandlin a couple of years ago at Barista Camp. We hit it off and have stayed in contact. He’s a pretty rad dude making some great moves down in California. Richard hit me up a few months ago regarding a new competition series he wanted to start in the Bay Area. Of course I wanted to help. I’ve been coordinating the #TNTNW series here at EP for almost two years now (WHOA) and it made me super happy that they wanted EP involved.
The Bay Area Coffee Community was born! BACC is a six month latte art competition series that will take place in the Bay Area. The first event kicking off at Barista Nation SF. Each event will pit Baristas against each other to see who can pour the best latte art! These events will help create an even stronger community in The Bay and will be open to the public. The three winners from each event will receive points, at the end of the series the people with the most points will be the all around winners. So, the more you compete the more likely you are to win the all around competition! Espresso Parts decided to sponsor the awards. We wanted to make an award the wasn’t only aesthetically pleasing but also functional. We finally decided on tamp trophies! Our in-house design wizard Dave White came up with the beauties you see below. The Kino tamp handle features the BACC logo and the base is marked with the EP logo and the competition year. The handle also features a pistol grip that was inspired by The Bay Bridge. You really want to win one!!
I was super stoked to find out that I would be accompanying Matt & Melissa (owners) to the Barista Nation SF/BACC kickoff. I had two bags for the one day trip, one was completely full of swag and the other a change of clothes. We flew into SFO got our rental car and headed for Sightglass Coffee.
After we got some awesome coffee in our system we made our way to Barista Nation. The event took place at The Women’s Building in The Mission. The building itself is covered with some amazing paintings and is the first woman-owned and operated community center in the country! Once we got our badges we split up.
I REALLY wanted to see Ken Olson’s talk “Doing Good While Doing Good Business” but our flight arrived too late! The next discussion on my itinerary was “Why We Do What We Do” led by Jeremy Kuempel of Blossom Coffee Inc. & Rip Pruishen of Rip Van Wafels. They went over the process of concept, prototype and product. These guys are so smart it’s crazy!
One of my favorite discussions was from the Keynote Speaker Katie Carguilo. She led the crowd through her career from Barnes & Noble to being the NE Champ. She is so dang humble and down to earth. I can’t remember her exact quote but she mentioned that just because she won the regional and US competition doesn’t make her the best Barista in the room it means she did really good at a game. AMAZING!!!!
The night ended with the BACC’s first throwdown. Not only were there awesome trophies there was also a food truck feeding hungry Baristas outside of the event. We had over 30 people compete for the top three spots. Everyone brought their A-game and a fun time was had by all. Big thanks to all of the baristas that showed up!
Make sure to check out http://www.bayareacoffee.org/ for upcoming events.
