OK ! So, I wish I was going to London…. WHY ? It's WBC time or in full World Barista Championship time. This year promises to be bigger and better than ever…. as always. This time the WBC will be held in London from 23-25 June and it will held in conjunction with the ever popular Caffe Culture Event, which I had been going to since it's inception in 2006. But, typical, just when I move away from Europe, I miss out on such a wonderful opportunity, but such is life. In any case, if you can and haven't booked your flight yet or better still if you live in London, log onto the caffe culture site (www.caffeculture.com) and you can attend for free, yes ! for free. This year, they've got a special treat, the launch of the new La Marzocco espresso machine, the Strada – the first La Marzocco machine that would let the barista to have absolute and direct control of pressure at any point during extraction, Wow ! Also, there's a whole load of guest speakers like David Schomer (if there was a phd in espresso, he would have one), Latte Art and Coffee Tasting competitions. Let's not forget the Caffe culture event too, where there will also be specialist workshops, like how to run a cafe.
Also happening in the coffee world at the moment are the auctions for the Cup of Excellence (CoE). I blogged about the CoE a while back in 2009, but in short it is a process where the best coffees in a country are selected by both national and international cuppers to determine which is the best coffee. After which, the selected coffees are awarded the prestigious Cup of Excellence award and auctioned off through the internet. Today, they had the CoE for El Salvador and redcherry coffee roasters of Cape Town were hoping to get some, even though I was lucky to taste some just last week, brought back by redcherry coffee roaster, Audrey (more on that experience later).
All over in Melbourne, Australia, I have to let you know that Market Lane in Prahran Market, Commercial Road is up and running… well it's been operational for about 6 months and from the reviews and pics (see market lane review ) I can't wait to buy a ticket and see the place for myself. For more about Market Lane see http://www.marketlane.com.au/ for more and if you are in that part of the World, you're very lucky… get down there and buy some coffee.
Still on new ventures, Square Mile Coffee Roasters have just opened up a new coffee shop in London, Penny University. The name might sound strange but it is based on London coffee history, where people visited coffee shops so often that they use to learn a lot about life, so for example each coffee shop was known for the professions that visited it, whereby if you went to a coffee shop frequented by physicians/doctors, you could learn a lot about medicine just by hanging out there for the day. The famous insurance company, Lloyds of London was created in a coffee shop frequented by insurers of course. OK ! so what's penny university ? It's actually one of the first modern coffee shops not to offer espresso based coffee – don't scream ! They are of course offering top quality coffee using different methods like the HarioV60, Woodneck, etc. For more see square mile coffee, link on my blogroll, and if you are in London for the WBC or just in London, get down there for a different coffee experience.
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 at 11:48 pm	and tagged with Cup of Excellence 2010, La Marzocco, La Strada, Market Lane Coffee, World Barista Championship and posted in Coffee News.	You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Congratulations and gooood luck, Lameen!