Hello Interweb people
This is by far the most difficult post so far. I am currently waiting for the evening end of conference dinner tonight, where they will crown the new African Barista Champ.
Sadly, it won't be me. I performed my set today, but went over time. So much so that I would have been disqualified. For whatever reason, I ran very behind my schedule, I didn't feel it when I started and it carried all the way through. The feeling of disappointment is compounded by the thought of how much money was put behind me getting me here.
On another note, the competition went really well. It is definitely unlike any I have competed in up to date. I had to find my own farm fresh milk and heat it up myself to kill off any bacteria.
I have also been impressed with the standard of things up here. Uganda is IMHO the most advanced and it shows. Godfrey and Mark from Uganda were great competitors. The Burundi and Rwanda competitors really did well too. I think it was their Countries first time at this but they entered with well rehearsed routines, especially knowing that they are doing it in a language that they are not really comfortable with.
A big thanks to the Judges and sponsors for it.
All i want now, is my family and my bed.
Saturday, 15 February 2014
Thursday, 13 February 2014
Suckin it up
So the last 2 days have been pretty uneventful for the most part. After catching something of a tummy bug, either from the water or the food. I have been pretty much hotel bound for since tuesday night.
I ended up waking up pretty early on tuesday with stomach pain, which is quite a nice change actually, normally it is shoulder pain. I always find change quite refreshing:). Anyways, I took some medication for pain and had some toilet time- to avoid me continuing to use the word toilet, or find something funny to say to draw your minds away from the actual actions happening I am going to codename toilet or anything related to it 'Houston' as in we have a problem Houston.
So, after Houston had taken its course, I went back to bed. I eventually woke up at 2pm and went down for breakfast. Do you know how difficult it is to order off a menu that is pretty much exclusively in French, I ordered a 'Chef Salad' with another what looked like a avocado salad so that I could add some avocado to my chef salad. Well, my 'chef' salad arrived first with what was most probably the half of Burundi's avocado export on a bed of lettuce and onion, I assumed that they knew what I wanted to do and did it for me. Before I could tuck into my meal, my other plate with my second salad arrived, the avocado one. This time with a football sized avocado sliced in half and filled with some white stuff. Smile and wave boys, smile and wave. In other words, there was no point in saying more than thanks to the waitress I was english only person scenario.
After lunch I went to Houston and then to bed for another four hours. I got woken up by Ben Carlson on the phone who asked me to come downstairs. I met him downstairs and and he introduced me to Nathan, from Cartel Roasters in Australia, a short guy( coming from me) Sam, a Ethiopian coffee trader that lives in the US now. And another US guy, who's name has eluded me, he has a roastery in the US and had worked for La Marzocco for a number of years. We went out to sit by the lake (Tanganyika) and drink a beer. The local beer here is Primus, It comes in flipping huge bottles, probably 700ml+. Pretty good, buy I only had half a glass. I went home with Ben early as I had pretty big fevers and cold spells. The next day was the planned farm and washing station visit which I didn't want to miss.
Farm visits were not meant to be, Houston and I were still not friends and I didn't feel confident to go up country without my close friend Houston and I also had to get better for the Barista Comp later in the week. So I reluctantly passed on the trip to see the legendary Long Miles Coffee Project. Before Ben and the other roasters left I had a chance of tasting a Natural processed Burundi from Counter Culture in the US which reset my awe of African coffees, this was tasted like raspberry juice, it was so bloody good i could not believe it. I cant wait for Burundi to rise to its glory. People need to taste how good this stuff is.
People left and I had a taxi driver asking for me, I then found out that I had to be at the conference venue. Organisation or lack of organisation is quite different in Africa, you have to be in earshot of the decision to be informed of it, times change at the drop of a hat, and a coffee machine arrival at 8am does not actually mean that, it just means that it will arrive.
I got to the lake side conference venue, found my way to someone who told me to go see someone else, who directed me to Andrea Simonelli, the guy from La Marzocco. Funny right, So Simonelli makes La Marzocco........... Andrea is a really cool 26 year old after sales guy at Marzocco. We got chatting while we waited for the machine to arrive. If you can believe it, we pretty much ran dry after about 6 hours and then finally, the machinery came. a brand spanking new Linea, and two Mazzer Super Jolly grinders, also new, which worries me somewhat because of the unseasoned burrs.
After meeting the Barista's there, The Uganda competitors seem to be the biggest competitors in the field. Godfrey from Uganda has been to the worlds and the other competitor from Uganda Mark Okota has also competed in the worlds before so it will be quite a tough competition I think.
Anyway, Houston and I are no longer close friends, which I think is good. And I am feeling pretty good about competing, aside from the occasional panic attack.
Much love
Craig
I ended up waking up pretty early on tuesday with stomach pain, which is quite a nice change actually, normally it is shoulder pain. I always find change quite refreshing:). Anyways, I took some medication for pain and had some toilet time- to avoid me continuing to use the word toilet, or find something funny to say to draw your minds away from the actual actions happening I am going to codename toilet or anything related to it 'Houston' as in we have a problem Houston.
So, after Houston had taken its course, I went back to bed. I eventually woke up at 2pm and went down for breakfast. Do you know how difficult it is to order off a menu that is pretty much exclusively in French, I ordered a 'Chef Salad' with another what looked like a avocado salad so that I could add some avocado to my chef salad. Well, my 'chef' salad arrived first with what was most probably the half of Burundi's avocado export on a bed of lettuce and onion, I assumed that they knew what I wanted to do and did it for me. Before I could tuck into my meal, my other plate with my second salad arrived, the avocado one. This time with a football sized avocado sliced in half and filled with some white stuff. Smile and wave boys, smile and wave. In other words, there was no point in saying more than thanks to the waitress I was english only person scenario.
After lunch I went to Houston and then to bed for another four hours. I got woken up by Ben Carlson on the phone who asked me to come downstairs. I met him downstairs and and he introduced me to Nathan, from Cartel Roasters in Australia, a short guy( coming from me) Sam, a Ethiopian coffee trader that lives in the US now. And another US guy, who's name has eluded me, he has a roastery in the US and had worked for La Marzocco for a number of years. We went out to sit by the lake (Tanganyika) and drink a beer. The local beer here is Primus, It comes in flipping huge bottles, probably 700ml+. Pretty good, buy I only had half a glass. I went home with Ben early as I had pretty big fevers and cold spells. The next day was the planned farm and washing station visit which I didn't want to miss.
Farm visits were not meant to be, Houston and I were still not friends and I didn't feel confident to go up country without my close friend Houston and I also had to get better for the Barista Comp later in the week. So I reluctantly passed on the trip to see the legendary Long Miles Coffee Project. Before Ben and the other roasters left I had a chance of tasting a Natural processed Burundi from Counter Culture in the US which reset my awe of African coffees, this was tasted like raspberry juice, it was so bloody good i could not believe it. I cant wait for Burundi to rise to its glory. People need to taste how good this stuff is.
People left and I had a taxi driver asking for me, I then found out that I had to be at the conference venue. Organisation or lack of organisation is quite different in Africa, you have to be in earshot of the decision to be informed of it, times change at the drop of a hat, and a coffee machine arrival at 8am does not actually mean that, it just means that it will arrive.
I got to the lake side conference venue, found my way to someone who told me to go see someone else, who directed me to Andrea Simonelli, the guy from La Marzocco. Funny right, So Simonelli makes La Marzocco........... Andrea is a really cool 26 year old after sales guy at Marzocco. We got chatting while we waited for the machine to arrive. If you can believe it, we pretty much ran dry after about 6 hours and then finally, the machinery came. a brand spanking new Linea, and two Mazzer Super Jolly grinders, also new, which worries me somewhat because of the unseasoned burrs.
After meeting the Barista's there, The Uganda competitors seem to be the biggest competitors in the field. Godfrey from Uganda has been to the worlds and the other competitor from Uganda Mark Okota has also competed in the worlds before so it will be quite a tough competition I think.
Anyway, Houston and I are no longer close friends, which I think is good. And I am feeling pretty good about competing, aside from the occasional panic attack.
Much love
Craig
Monday, 10 February 2014
Injury, Floods and Barista Training
Well my second and third days were eventful too. I spent the morning at my hotel doing emails and catching up on South African matters. I was also contacted by the lady who boarded me onto Kenyan Airways telling me that she had found my hopper and is keeping it safe for me. I dont mean to be negative, but I cant imagine this happening in South Africa. I gave her my business card and she whatsapped me. Mind blown.
I took a swim in the crystal clear pool in the middle of the hotel and had a light lunch. Ben Carlson was going to pick me up for a casual, friendly game of Ultimate (frisbee). On my second dive and catch I landed on granite-well it felt like it- and either tore my rotator cuff and did something to my collar bone. Not the most ideal outcome of our friendly game but anyway. I chatted to a medical lecturer on the field and he said that there was nothing much they could do in burundi anyway. I can lift it to the side a bit but thats about all. It shall make a interesting competition set.
We went to dinner and I got to meet one of Ben's colleagues Lauren who is doing some great things here with regards to sustainability on both the people and the land. It started raining just after we got home from dinner which was a relief after a humid day which will make durban feel like a airconed apartment. After medicating myself with some pain killers, anti-inflamitories and alcohol I woke up in the morning. mild rain that I experience the night before must have become pretty violent during my drug induced sleep. I watched the news of floods but I couldn't have imagined that it would have been that bad.
Lauren was supposed to go up to the farms but the road was closed, instead she accompanied me to try and find a ATM that accepted International Visa cards. Interbank is the only one here that seems to work, and only a handful of them are online and working. So after many failed attempts to get money I got some from Lauren and we were on route to Hotel Club Du Lac which is where the AFCA conference is going to be held. This is when I realised how bad the floods actually were.
The main traffic circle that we were going to use was jammed with traffic and nothing was moving. Ben's knew another route to the club which we tried, only to find that it was no better. The bridge had given way and collapsed into the flood waters below it. Lauren and I got on foot and negotiated a motor bike taxi driver to give us a two for one price of 1000BIF to get us across the water swept road which was ankle deep in the best parts and not so ankle deep in the other parts. He took us to the venue which is right by Lake Tanganyika. My word. It is something special to see a body of water that big. On the very far shore you can see the hills of the DRC and north of that the shores of Rwanda. On our way out I spotted a San Marco lever machine, Naturally I introduced myself as the SA Barista champ and asked him If I could make a coffee on it.
I have never been much of a San Marco person, but a lever is a special thing. It was magnificent. It had the ugly (IMHO) bodywork of a series 95 san marco. But the essence and brute beauty of a lever machine. I have still had my best espresso's from a lever machine. The lever machine was made for the espresso, and the espresso for the lever machine. Ok, rant over. I subsequently met Jigga Christian who is the runner up at the Burundi Barista champs. I was seeing him later at the Burundi Barista Training which Francis, a Ugandan Barista that had been training these guys had organised.
After another well pulled espresso we started our 1km walk back to the river swept section of the road. This time we crossed by foot, dodging cars, bikes, people, taxis and trucks on a 2m wide section of road covered with water is quite an experience. Gascar, Ben's driver met us before the bridge and we walked back to the car and started our trip through town to the Silhouette cafe where I would do the training.
I trained the top three Burundi Barista's, I had set out to do the same presentation that I had done on the 'There is no X in espresso' roadshow which I did around the country back in SA. Well that was the idea. But after realising that these guys have very limiting parts available and a limited amount of machinery that they had worked on I changed the training time drastically. I got right back to the nuts and bolts of espresso preparation and extraction. Teaching them about how heat exchanger machines worked and how to manipulate the temperature in the group head to attain different tastes in the coffee.
I was blown away by their dedication and passion for better coffee. They are not letting the machinery hold them back. Its so good to see. Burundi will be, I believe, a place of incredible depth and coffee passion in the future.
I took a swim in the crystal clear pool in the middle of the hotel and had a light lunch. Ben Carlson was going to pick me up for a casual, friendly game of Ultimate (frisbee). On my second dive and catch I landed on granite-well it felt like it- and either tore my rotator cuff and did something to my collar bone. Not the most ideal outcome of our friendly game but anyway. I chatted to a medical lecturer on the field and he said that there was nothing much they could do in burundi anyway. I can lift it to the side a bit but thats about all. It shall make a interesting competition set.
We went to dinner and I got to meet one of Ben's colleagues Lauren who is doing some great things here with regards to sustainability on both the people and the land. It started raining just after we got home from dinner which was a relief after a humid day which will make durban feel like a airconed apartment. After medicating myself with some pain killers, anti-inflamitories and alcohol I woke up in the morning. mild rain that I experience the night before must have become pretty violent during my drug induced sleep. I watched the news of floods but I couldn't have imagined that it would have been that bad.
Lauren was supposed to go up to the farms but the road was closed, instead she accompanied me to try and find a ATM that accepted International Visa cards. Interbank is the only one here that seems to work, and only a handful of them are online and working. So after many failed attempts to get money I got some from Lauren and we were on route to Hotel Club Du Lac which is where the AFCA conference is going to be held. This is when I realised how bad the floods actually were.
The main traffic circle that we were going to use was jammed with traffic and nothing was moving. Ben's knew another route to the club which we tried, only to find that it was no better. The bridge had given way and collapsed into the flood waters below it. Lauren and I got on foot and negotiated a motor bike taxi driver to give us a two for one price of 1000BIF to get us across the water swept road which was ankle deep in the best parts and not so ankle deep in the other parts. He took us to the venue which is right by Lake Tanganyika. My word. It is something special to see a body of water that big. On the very far shore you can see the hills of the DRC and north of that the shores of Rwanda. On our way out I spotted a San Marco lever machine, Naturally I introduced myself as the SA Barista champ and asked him If I could make a coffee on it.
I have never been much of a San Marco person, but a lever is a special thing. It was magnificent. It had the ugly (IMHO) bodywork of a series 95 san marco. But the essence and brute beauty of a lever machine. I have still had my best espresso's from a lever machine. The lever machine was made for the espresso, and the espresso for the lever machine. Ok, rant over. I subsequently met Jigga Christian who is the runner up at the Burundi Barista champs. I was seeing him later at the Burundi Barista Training which Francis, a Ugandan Barista that had been training these guys had organised.
After another well pulled espresso we started our 1km walk back to the river swept section of the road. This time we crossed by foot, dodging cars, bikes, people, taxis and trucks on a 2m wide section of road covered with water is quite an experience. Gascar, Ben's driver met us before the bridge and we walked back to the car and started our trip through town to the Silhouette cafe where I would do the training.
I trained the top three Burundi Barista's, I had set out to do the same presentation that I had done on the 'There is no X in espresso' roadshow which I did around the country back in SA. Well that was the idea. But after realising that these guys have very limiting parts available and a limited amount of machinery that they had worked on I changed the training time drastically. I got right back to the nuts and bolts of espresso preparation and extraction. Teaching them about how heat exchanger machines worked and how to manipulate the temperature in the group head to attain different tastes in the coffee.
Sunday, 9 February 2014
AFCA conference and All African Barista Champs
Well,
This is my first attempt at writing for the sole purpose of other people reading it. Here goes.
For those of you who don't know me, i won the SA Barista champs in 2013 which allows me to compete in the All African Barista Champs (the reason I am here in Burundi now) and the world champs in June in Italy.
This post will be about the Burundi trip.
For those of you who have never competed in a Barista comp outside your town, you have no idea how much stuff you need to take with. I left Durban with 56kg of luggage, 9 kgs of coffee and a bubble wrapped Malkonig K30 hopper in my hand(which now lives in Kenya somewhere near the airport).
I left Durban in the morning at 7am, Darryl from Illovo, Iain from True North Media and my family(read friends too)were there to wish me well. After paying a small amount in excess luggage fees I was on my way. I spent most of the trip catching up on Game of Thrones on my phone. I tried to get USD at OR Tambo but didn't have a document stating my residential address. After the rigmarole of me getting a bank statement only to realise that It has my postal address on it not my house address.
I boarded the A320 which was the same plane I got to JHB on and left for Nairobi. I occasionally looked out the window when there were no clouds so I could see the ground. Something about African really does resonate deep in me. We (South Africans) often forget that we are Africans. We finally arrived in Kenya a bit early. The same fire at the airport that caused my coffee to arrive late for the nationals is the same reason most of the airport is under re-construction(that my guess anyway). I couldn't draw money in Kenya because my bank card wasn't working, I forgot to tell my bank I was going to Central Africa and I was suspecting that they were blocking it.
We got off the plane and got onto a bus which took us to the immigration desk. You forget how confusing it is being in a country that does not speak your language. My biggest saving grace here was that there was completly free wifi as we arrived in the customs part of the airport. I was able to at least get into contact with home. My biggest fear was that my Coffee that had to go in the cargo hold was ruined, and that they thought my K30 grinder body was some sort of bomb and confiscated it. At OR Tambo they already confiscated my leatherman bit set which I had in my wallet.
I got through the arrivals part of the airport then walked about 400m on and next to a road to get to the international departures terminal. Stood in a queue for quite a while why I put my hand luggage, now including the 9kgs of coffee. It is I must say, very different from South Africa airports.
I had to book my bags in again, this time I paid 75$ extra for the extra 25kg I had. I had to go outside again, through the 50+ queue of people trying to get in the building to the Kenyan Airlines office to pay, I prayed that my card would work, If It didnt I dont know what I would have done. Well, it did work. I rushed back to hand in the slip and proceed to the Plane
I used the 10$ I had on me to buy 2 bananas by some kiosk near my bording gate. I was going to order a coffee, I saw they had a La Marzocco Linea with a Compak K6 grinder. The Barista dosed on command which is always a good-ish sign but when I saw the shot being pulled I turned and ran as fast as I could-well not really. It was a transparent black with my colour skin crema, no thank you.
As I got through the gate to bord the plane I wondered why I was moving between people with such ease, when I realised that I was one k30 hopper short of a happy traveling barista I bowed my head and said something like 'Craig, Dumbass' or something of the like, I knew that here was very little chance that I could get it back because it was an un-marked(my bad) plastic hopper covered in bubble wrap that was probably at the cashier at Kenya Airways. I boarded the plane, It was a much better plane than any of the South African Planes I had flown on, even on such a small plane there was a screen behind every headrest.
I looked out the window much the same as I did coming up to kenya, but Burundi had way more mountains that I was expecting, it looked like an aerial view of the Jurassic Park movie, deep dense forests, super green, I now know why Ben Carlson and his family moved here, this place is surely destined for incredible coffee production.
A short flight to Bujumbura was made a pleasure by drinking some local Lager called 'Tusker'. We landed on the landing strip at the airport, went through customs(one desk) I was greeted by someone from the AFCA conference called Emmery, I was so flipping happy to find someone that knew sort of who I was, or at least that I was coming, I now had 5$ to my name, and no way that I knew of of communicating well enough for someone to take me into town to get to a bank which would most probably be closed at this time of night. But Emmery bought me a local sim card with 1gb of data on it. He then took me to a hotel that had a atm where I could draw cash, I managed to get 100 000 BFU local currency, which was enough to pay him back for the sim card and have some if needed.
He then took me to my hotel, when I finally got there i was so flipping stoked to see that my name was registered and all was done. I had a safe place now. I unpacked my bags, only one broken glass, the rest was fine. so all in all I pretty happy.
Let the coffee adventure continue....
This is my first attempt at writing for the sole purpose of other people reading it. Here goes.
For those of you who don't know me, i won the SA Barista champs in 2013 which allows me to compete in the All African Barista Champs (the reason I am here in Burundi now) and the world champs in June in Italy.
This post will be about the Burundi trip.
For those of you who have never competed in a Barista comp outside your town, you have no idea how much stuff you need to take with. I left Durban with 56kg of luggage, 9 kgs of coffee and a bubble wrapped Malkonig K30 hopper in my hand(which now lives in Kenya somewhere near the airport).
I left Durban in the morning at 7am, Darryl from Illovo, Iain from True North Media and my family(read friends too)were there to wish me well. After paying a small amount in excess luggage fees I was on my way. I spent most of the trip catching up on Game of Thrones on my phone. I tried to get USD at OR Tambo but didn't have a document stating my residential address. After the rigmarole of me getting a bank statement only to realise that It has my postal address on it not my house address.
I boarded the A320 which was the same plane I got to JHB on and left for Nairobi. I occasionally looked out the window when there were no clouds so I could see the ground. Something about African really does resonate deep in me. We (South Africans) often forget that we are Africans. We finally arrived in Kenya a bit early. The same fire at the airport that caused my coffee to arrive late for the nationals is the same reason most of the airport is under re-construction(that my guess anyway). I couldn't draw money in Kenya because my bank card wasn't working, I forgot to tell my bank I was going to Central Africa and I was suspecting that they were blocking it.
We got off the plane and got onto a bus which took us to the immigration desk. You forget how confusing it is being in a country that does not speak your language. My biggest saving grace here was that there was completly free wifi as we arrived in the customs part of the airport. I was able to at least get into contact with home. My biggest fear was that my Coffee that had to go in the cargo hold was ruined, and that they thought my K30 grinder body was some sort of bomb and confiscated it. At OR Tambo they already confiscated my leatherman bit set which I had in my wallet.
I got through the arrivals part of the airport then walked about 400m on and next to a road to get to the international departures terminal. Stood in a queue for quite a while why I put my hand luggage, now including the 9kgs of coffee. It is I must say, very different from South Africa airports.
I had to book my bags in again, this time I paid 75$ extra for the extra 25kg I had. I had to go outside again, through the 50+ queue of people trying to get in the building to the Kenyan Airlines office to pay, I prayed that my card would work, If It didnt I dont know what I would have done. Well, it did work. I rushed back to hand in the slip and proceed to the Plane
I used the 10$ I had on me to buy 2 bananas by some kiosk near my bording gate. I was going to order a coffee, I saw they had a La Marzocco Linea with a Compak K6 grinder. The Barista dosed on command which is always a good-ish sign but when I saw the shot being pulled I turned and ran as fast as I could-well not really. It was a transparent black with my colour skin crema, no thank you.
As I got through the gate to bord the plane I wondered why I was moving between people with such ease, when I realised that I was one k30 hopper short of a happy traveling barista I bowed my head and said something like 'Craig, Dumbass' or something of the like, I knew that here was very little chance that I could get it back because it was an un-marked(my bad) plastic hopper covered in bubble wrap that was probably at the cashier at Kenya Airways. I boarded the plane, It was a much better plane than any of the South African Planes I had flown on, even on such a small plane there was a screen behind every headrest.
I looked out the window much the same as I did coming up to kenya, but Burundi had way more mountains that I was expecting, it looked like an aerial view of the Jurassic Park movie, deep dense forests, super green, I now know why Ben Carlson and his family moved here, this place is surely destined for incredible coffee production.
A short flight to Bujumbura was made a pleasure by drinking some local Lager called 'Tusker'. We landed on the landing strip at the airport, went through customs(one desk) I was greeted by someone from the AFCA conference called Emmery, I was so flipping happy to find someone that knew sort of who I was, or at least that I was coming, I now had 5$ to my name, and no way that I knew of of communicating well enough for someone to take me into town to get to a bank which would most probably be closed at this time of night. But Emmery bought me a local sim card with 1gb of data on it. He then took me to a hotel that had a atm where I could draw cash, I managed to get 100 000 BFU local currency, which was enough to pay him back for the sim card and have some if needed.
He then took me to my hotel, when I finally got there i was so flipping stoked to see that my name was registered and all was done. I had a safe place now. I unpacked my bags, only one broken glass, the rest was fine. so all in all I pretty happy.
Let the coffee adventure continue....
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