Latest / Coffee People Podcast / Musings From The Judge's Chair: Hacea Coffee Source Roasting Competition

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Musings From The Judge's Chair: Hacea Coffee Source Roasting Competition · Coffee People Podcast

• 0:10
  Hey everyone, thanks for popping into the Coffee People podcast
• 0:14
  for an interlude throwback episode to August when I was a
• 0:17
  judge in the coffee roasting competition hosted for the very
• 0:21
  first time by our friends and collaborators at Hosea Coffee
• 0:25
  Source. I'm your host, Ryan Wolt, and
• 0:27
  this show, the Coffee People podcast, as I just mentioned, is
• 0:31
  part of the Roast West Coast Coffee Network and presented by
• 0:35
  Rostar Coffee Packaging. They're supporting this effort
• 0:38
  even between seasons. All of the clips you're about to
• 0:41
  hear were recorded in a super professional way and definitely
• 0:46
  not on The Voice notes app on my phone.
• 0:50
  Just kidding. That's obviously what I did.
• 0:53
  I was on the move. What are you going to do?
• 0:56
  I'm going to skip ahead just a little bit in our timeline to
• 0:58
  share a chat I had with Emily Smith, the newest member of Team
• 1:02
  Messiah, talking about the roasting competition itself.
• 1:06
  I'm Emily Smith and I'm the newest member to the Hasaya
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  team. Been with Hasaya for about the
• 1:14
  last eight months. We just spent the morning
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  tasting what I would call a, but I think like 40 different
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  coffees, excuse my language everyone, for this roasting
• 1:24
  competition that you're doing, the first annual Hassaya Coffee
• 1:28
  Blend roasting competition, is that the official title?
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  You guys sent out three different coffees to 75 to 100
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  different roasters and asked for their them to work on it and
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  send it back. And we've been tasting them like
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  why do this? What inspired it?
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  So you used to have the Roasters Guilder treat every summer right
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  around this time, and there was always a a roasting competition
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  that was a part of the event. And my experiences in those
• 2:00
  competitions were always really positive.
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  It gave you the opportunity to get your hands on coffees that
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  maybe you normally wouldn't select or you normally wouldn't
• 2:10
  think about using for a blend. So I wanted to create something,
• 2:16
  a competition, but really just an educational opportunity for
• 2:20
  people to engage with coffees that were new to them, without
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  any kind of preconceived notions about how that coffee should be
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  roasted, but rather just relying on their own skill set and their
• 2:34
  own ability to taste and experience the coffees.
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  Did the roasters know what coffees they were getting
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  beforehand? No.
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  So the roasters each got a competition entry pack that had
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  three coffees in it. Each coffee was in a bag on its
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  own and the bags were labeled AB and C so it was completely
• 2:56
  blind. So they really had to like have
• 2:59
  a bunch of different skill sets potentially, or like maybe
• 3:03
  coffees if they knew two of the coffees and they were ones they
• 3:06
  recognized. Like I've worked with these
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  before, but not the third. They had to learn that kind of
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  as they went. Yeah, I think the most important
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  skill set with these, with these coffees, it's really just the
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  ability to problem solve. So as a roaster, you're
• 3:21
  constantly going into situations where the coffee maybe is
• 3:27
  different than how you had expected.
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  It's different from the previous year's crop or even as it's
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  aging, there are changes in how the coffee's moisture and it's
• 3:39
  affecting the roast and your outcome.
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  So a big part of these, like the idea of doing this mystery
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  competition is that somebody would use the skills of use
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  their sensory skills and be able to cup the coffee or make pour
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  overs of the coffee. But from that experience, look
• 4:02
  at how they modify their roast to develop.
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  I don't think anybody comes into this having a roast that they
• 4:07
  can, a roast profile that they can just throw on the for these
• 4:12
  coffees, they're it's all about the skill of problem solving
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  with challenging coffees. Yeah, As a non roaster, it
• 4:21
  definitely seems like a challenge.
• 4:24
  Emily, thanks for all of that. I have to say, I think you're
• 4:26
  probably the most well spoken of the say, A team that I've met so
• 4:29
  far. Thank you so much.
• 4:31
  Yeah, you're welcome. The roasting competition's
• 4:36
  biggest challenge was that the roasters were doing it blind,
• 4:39
  forcing them to engage with the coffee without any preconceived,
• 4:43
  or at least confirmed preconceived perspectives on the
• 4:46
  green bean. They had to engage with it,
• 4:49
  identify, develop and adapt on the fly and do it quickly, which
• 4:55
  I also had to do as a judge. It is not quite coffee fest, but
• 5:01
  I'm calling it morning one because I'm heading up to Los
• 5:04
  Angeles to meet the team over at a, say, a coffee source.
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  I am recording while trying to back out of my little parking
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  spot here, which is probably not super intelligent, but I have
• 5:17
  eaten a Big Breakfast, a whole bunch of eggs and keto toast and
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  goat cheese. Because I think we're
• 5:25
  responsible for trying 35 coffees today in the Hussea
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  Coffee Source Roasting Championship, the first
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  inaugural up in Anaheim. And it'll be a good opportunity
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  to kind of get involved in the roasting competition corner of
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  the industry, see how all that works, and learn a whole hell of
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  a lot about how to score a cup of coffee.
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  We spent a lot of time the last few years tasting coffees and
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  cupping coffees and being intentional about what I'm
• 5:59
  doing. But the whole scoring thing is
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  frankly pretty daunting, and the pace at which we're going to
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  have to do it seems scary. So I'm going to spend the drive
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  up to Los Angeles mentally motivating myself, manifesting,
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  uh, confidence, I think is the way they would say it in
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  today's, uh, social circles. But we'll see how it goes.
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  Wish me luck. So the red line on the map is
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  just getting longer and longer, which is the problem with events
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  in Los Angeles if you live in Southern California.
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  And as I am sitting here surrounded by sports mobile vans
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  and semi trucks and more Porsches and Teslas than I have
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  ever seen in my life, I am feeling some very serious
• 7:08
  imposter syndrome about being a judge in this competition.
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  I know I'm the wild card. I'm not a coffee professional.
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  I just tell coffee stories and learn about coffee from people
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  smarter than me. But that doesn't mean that I
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  should be a judge in this competition.
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  I don't mean to laugh, and I'm not trying to take away from the
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  cop. I appreciate the invite.
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  I think there's a lot of value in having a lot of different
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  opinions. Thankfully, I am not the only
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  judge. I'm one of many.
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  But the longer I sit in traffic, the more nervous I get and the
• 7:52
  louder the trucks around me get. Checking in again soon?
• 8:00
  OK, it's day two of the Husaya Roasting Championship judging.
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  Day one was intense. There's three different coffees
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  that all of our roasters, about 74 of them were given and they
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  had to blend them together. And we are judging them on this
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  crazy 8 category scale, including Can you sense or taste
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  each of the different coffees? How do they balance together?
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  The acidity, the complexity, the sweetness, and when 74 different
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  roasters roast the same coffee and blend it in various ratios,
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  you get a lot of variation. Quite shocking actually.
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  But it's also a challenge to pick out, you know, qualifiers
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  that say this one is better than that one because so many have
• 8:58
  very similar traits. It really evens the playing
• 9:02
  field quite a bit. In the room are four Q graders,
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  led by our fearless leaders here at Hosea, Jared and Luke Hales,
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  and then me. I am not AQ grader, I'm just a
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  guy who drinks coffee all the time, so I'm definitely the wild
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  card here. But hopefully at the end of the
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  day, my scores and my notes are valuable to a roaster somewhere,
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  and I'm looking forward to a whole nother day of this.
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  I think we have 40 coffees to go, so I have to say, being
• 9:38
  intentional and mindful during a tasting may not sound hard, but
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  try doing it for several hours a day with 75 different coffees,
• 9:46
  all of whom use the same beans. The scale was fairly daunting,
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  and it was important to remember that we weren't just doing this
• 9:54
  for funsies. We had a responsibility to judge
• 9:57
  honestly and accurately and then provide feedback for a slew of
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  roasters who each used their own time, money, and effort to
• 10:05
  develop this coffee. We had to start each judging
• 10:09
  session with a full passion bucket because it is easy to get
• 10:12
  overwhelmed or even dismissive when so many coffees have
• 10:16
  overlapping flavor profiles, which of course is a result of
• 10:20
  them using the same base coffee beans.
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  That also made it noticeable when one coffee would really
• 10:26
  stand out, someone would just knock it out of the park.
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  You'd even see the heads of the other judges kind of nodding and
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  maybe it take an occasional extra slurp at the table and
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  then go back for more, and even sometimes again.
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  It wasn't technically table talk, but it was an
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  acknowledgement that there were a handful that really stood out.
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  For the record, the judges calibrated their tastes at the
• 10:48
  beginning of each session. And we were cupping blind too.
• 10:51
  We didn't know who roasted what. After all the roasting and then
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  all the judging, there was the celebrating.
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  So we just announced the winners of the Jose roasting competition
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  that we spent all week judging their coffees and now we're here
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  at the party and everybody's excited.
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  In the top five, some great coffees, including third place
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  was Carrie Elliott of Elliott Murray Coffee.
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  I think they're now called Mom's Drink Coffee or Mom's Roast
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  coffee rather up in Oregon. Former guest of the Coffee
• 11:24
  People podcast and our number one coffee, remember we tasted
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  all of them blind, was from a guy named Max who's just a home
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  Brewer. I don't mean just he's a home
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  Brewer, home roaster in Philadelphia.
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  And that's pretty awesome. So if you're out there and you
• 11:45
  listen to the show and you're roasting coffee at home and
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  you're feeling like an imposter, kind of like I felt all week
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  judging these coffees, know that you could be brewing, roasting,
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  making developing flavors and coffees just as good as some
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  legit world champion coffee roasters who were part of this
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  roasting competition. I think we had two former world
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  champion roasters that were at least part of our top 75.
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  And in the end it was Max from Philadelphia.
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  So Congrats to Max and Congrats to Hisaya.
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  This was such a cool experience to be included as a judge and
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  also to get some of these delicious cocktails now here at
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  the party to celebrate everybody.
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  And I'm looking forward to tomorrow at Coffeefest because
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  there'll be more coffee there. And some of these cool people
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  I've met tonight, like Andrew and Lee from True Love and Jeff
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  and Michaela from Bear Coast, and just all these incredible
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  coffee people that are connecting and collecting
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  together in one place will be here in Los Angeles right near
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  my home. Until then, I've since learned
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  that the winner, Max Elenovich, was on the verge of going pro.
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  His coffee roasting company, Brain Wave Roasters, is a micro
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  roaster based in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
• 13:13
  They launched officially just a month or so ago, but he had been
• 13:17
  a home roaster up until then. You'll learn a lot more about
• 13:20
  Max in the near future, as he is a guest on an upcoming episode
• 13:23
  of Coffee People. We've already chatted and I'm
• 13:25
  really excited to share that with you.
• 13:28
  When the judging was all over, we still had this thing called
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  Coffee Fest to attend. The very first person I ran into
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  on Sunday morning was one of the competition's competitors who
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  offered up some sage advice about competition, which I
• 13:40
  caught someone. We jump into our chat about
• 13:43
  halfway through and we're talking about the success of NBA
• 13:46
  basketball star LeBron James, who was also the league's all
• 13:50
  time leading scorer. And now that I say that out
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  loud, you might have been talking about Michael Jordan
• 13:55
  too. Can't remember, but I think it
• 13:57
  was LeBron. Here you go.
• 14:00
  Anyway, Steve's advice still holds.
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  Like no one ever keeps track of how many misses he has.
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  So he has, even though people are like he has the all time
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  high scoring, he has the all time high missing.
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  So it was just like, you have to fail so much to actually create
• 14:16
  some achievement. So I always tell people I'm like
• 14:18
  the, you know, I always tell compete enough and you'll
• 14:22
  accidentally win. And so like, that's kind of how
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  my mentality of these are where I just like, I don't take
• 14:27
  anything to heart. So I just keep competing and
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  competing and losing. And then eventually you know
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  you'll you'll end up winning one and be happy about it.
• 14:36
  That's it's a great perspective. If you wouldn't mind, name and
• 14:41
  the name of your roaster and then tell me what your kind of
• 14:45
  first day in LA for Coffee Fest was like.
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  OK, so my name is Steve Cuevas. I'm the master roaster at
• 14:51
  Lucky's Coffee Roaster. I wear a bunch of different hats
• 14:54
  for them. But my first day involved, it
• 14:57
  was super hectic. So my first, the first event I
• 15:00
  had to go to was the coffee games out at Copa Vida where we
• 15:03
  had to dial in espresso and then presented to the judge.
• 15:07
  The second thing I went to was the Hacia roasting competition,
• 15:11
  which they sent us 3 mystery coffees and we created a blend
• 15:15
  and turned those into the judges.
• 15:17
  Then at the Calafia party at night, which I got entered into
• 15:22
  a latte art competition unbeknownst to me, but I got to
• 15:27
  set a new record where I got to lose all three of the
• 15:30
  competitions in one day. So that's my new record where
• 15:33
  I'm oh for three for competition that day, so.
• 15:36
  Man Steve, I hope that next year you go you try to do over 4.
• 15:40
  Well, okay, so that's the thing, right?
• 15:42
  That's the thing. Challenge the.
• 15:43
  Thing about having goals is always sending them higher,
• 15:45
  yeah. So yeah, the next one is like I
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  gotta do 4 competitions and lose out all four of them.
• 15:51
  Someday you'll win all three in one day.
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  And that I mean. Just yeah.
• 15:55
  But then where do you go from there?
• 15:56
  You know there's a then you. Got to win.
• 15:57
  You retire to an island somewhere and you know it's just
• 16:00
  glory from the heavens, that's what.
• 16:02
  It's like I, no, I, I enjoy competing.
• 16:04
  So to me it was just kind of like, you know, it doesn't stop
• 16:09
  me losing, so it and and it doesn't push me to keep going.
• 16:14
  I just enjoy it. So it's just one of those
• 16:16
  things. So yeah.
• 16:18
  I love it. OK, that's all for this
• 16:22
  Interlude episode, I'll share the links to Hosea's recap and
• 16:25
  the competitor scores in the podcast, show notes, and of
• 16:28
  course, in our newsletter, which you can find on
• 16:30
  roastwestcoast.com or on coffeepeoplepodcast.com.
• 16:34
  Whichever you prefer, They both go to the same place.
• 16:37
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• 16:40
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• 16:43
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• 16:48
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• 16:51
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• 16:55
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• 16:58
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• 17:41
  This is the last of our Interlude episodes before we
• 17:43
  launched Season 12. Our first guests include Brad
• 17:46
  Leopard from Council O Grossing, Yashan Smith, barista
• 17:49
  extraordinaire and coffee educator and of course the
• 17:52
  aforementioned Max Elinovich, champion coffee roaster and Co
• 17:56
  founder of Brain Wave Roasters. Thanks to Hosea Coffee Source
• 18:00
  for inviting me to the party and thank you for listening,
• 18:03
  sharing, asking questions and being coffee curious.
• 18:07
  This show, the Coffee people podcast is part of the roast
• 18:09
  West Coast Coffee network. This episode is was has been
• 18:13
  written, produced, researched and recorded by me, Ryan Wolt,
• 18:16
  wherever you find yourself today, I hope it's with a fine
• 18:20
  cup of coffee. Thank you for listening to us
• 18:22
  tell the stories of coffee people.
• 18:24
  Cheers.