Well suffice to say, it couldn't happen to a nicer guy.
Rob Kettner, of Fernwood Coffee Roasters in Victoria, BC, is the new 2010 Canadian National Barista Champion. Kettner's competition setup and round was quite spectacular, and featured a tasting flight for the signature round to show judges how coffee reacts and tastes in different brewing methods and at different levels of acidity.
I had a chance to speak with Fernwood's roaster, Ben Cramm about Kettner's competition and the philosophy behind their game plan.
"I took the Willem Boot Roasting Course and did a ton of profile roasting, "Cramm said. "We really started playing with different roast profiles and what it could do to flavours, and the natural progression for our competition was just trying to think outside of the box - we wanted three profiles and wanted a way to showcase each."
"Sweet was our espresso; the acidic profile was done as a pourover which we turned into a foam, and our bitter was done as a cold brew." Cramm said. "The cold brew we used a tonic with to accent the bitterness, the acidic was a lemon tart tweaked a little more on the tart side. All three were presented to the judges as a drink flight to taste the potentials of coffee."
The presentation was well received by the judges, and where Kettner went 50 seconds overtime in his first round (and still made the finals) he was within time in his finals. The entire finals round is in the recorded stream below:
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