Judging Coffee

[joiei]

I am going to have a chance to judge a professional barista and coffee brewer contest.  Any suggestions for reading so I will be more knowledgeable before I get there?   

[chileheadmike]

I'm a BBQ judge as well, I went through the KCBS certification. They went through objective qualities of good and bad barbecue and talked about subjective ones.

 

I'd be curious if there's a judging body for baristas and what objective attributes a good cup of coffee  would have. Are they judging on the cream designs? Flavor? Body?

 

[nickrey]

You could start with The Specialty Coffee Association of America Scoring protocols.

 

 

[joiei]

I didn't get to judge, and that was okay.  I did get to work as a volunteer all weekend,  The days started at 6:30am, meeting the contestants so they could get a cup before choosing the beans they wanted to use that day.  Btw the event was the Green Country Preliminaries here in Tulsa.  The days ended closer to 5:30pm.  I got to be disher, runner, what ever Sarah said she needed.  Being in the dish pit meant that I got to be in the back where it was quiet.  I did get the opportunity to meet most of the contestants.  Most were from TX, AR, KS and OK.  These folks were so nice.  Many stories about their dish days.  Intense!  When they were in the back running through their script, I knew to not disturb them.  This was not like going to Starbucks and watching someone just pull a cup.  There were two areas covered,  the baristas and then the coffee brewers.  Most of them did both sides.  The intensity reminded my of way back when I did some ACF competitions.  The bonus is I did learn a lot.  Nickrey, thank you for your suggestion.  Who knows, I might even try to go beyond my very limited field of knowledge.  Tasted some great coffees from KLLR out of Edmund, OK and Reverie out of Wichita, KS.  I was able to start  bringing my wine knowledge and palate into coffee descriptions.  It was so easy to do that.  Met some really nice folks and had some really interesting conversations with some of the competitors and coffee roasting shop owners.  Now when I travel, I will be on the lookout not only for bbq but also coffee, oh and i forgot beer.  oops.  

[joiei]

On 9/6/2017 at 2:19 PM, chileheadmike said:

I'm a BBQ judge as well, I went through the KCBS certification. They went through objective qualities of good and bad barbecue and talked about subjective ones.

 

I'd be curious if there's a judging body for baristas and what objective attributes a good cup of coffee  would have. Are they judging on the cream designs? Flavor? Body?

 

Mike, it was so much more than bbq has ever been. And so much more interesting.  These guys were dealing with precentages, amounts of grind to water, size of grind, and so much more.  

  in the BBQ world, right now I am in a funk.  Cook teams seem to think that judges know nothing.  Maybe we should create another topic so as to not reduce this topic.  Judy and I talked about this a long time ago and she warned me.  

[Alex]

Are you familiar with the Coffee Taster's Flavor Wheel? There also are other resources on that Counter Culture Coffee website.

[joiei]

4 hours ago, Alex said:

Are you familiar with the Coffee Taster's Flavor Wheel? There also are other resources on that Counter Culture Coffee website.

Yes, it reads very close to a wine wheel in discriptors.