In the Grinder - Our Daily Coffee Weblog

The North Central Regional Barista Competition was held in Chicago this year hosted byTorani at Navy Pier. 

The event was absolutely chalk full of stellar competitors.  Last year's US Barista Champion and World Barista Champion Mike Phillips of Intelligentsia came from the former Great Lakes Region; now restructered into the North Central Region. 

Andrew, Sally, and myself all traveled down to Chicago for the event.  This year's RBC was held in conjunction with Coffee Fest, so many people who normally would not attend an RBC got the opportunity to step away from the show floor and check out the competition.  Sally and Andrew manned the booth while I took my USBC judging certification test.  I passed, and I was able to judge these incredible baristas over the course of the weekend.  I learned a ton during the certification process, and I would highly recommend doing it if you are looking in more ways to get involved in the coffee community.  

Outside of the competition, it was awesome to be in a city that does an excellent job of complementing fine dining with excellent coffee.  We visited The Bongo Room for breakfast and had perfectly prepared Intelligentsia coffee and went to the unbelievable Graham Elliot for dinner followed by exquisite shots of Metropolis coffee.  My hope is that more cities follow suit and give customers great coffee experiences at their restaurants.  

The finalists were announced Saturday evening: Ryan Knapp and Trevor Corlett of Mad Cap, Brett Felchner of Anodyne, Alli VanHyft of Grey House Coffee, and Scott Lucey and Cody Kinart of Alterra took the top 6 spots. 

After competiting again on Sunday, of the six finalists, the top three were decided.  Ryan Knapp took 1st place, followed by Scott Lucey taking 2nd, and Trevor Corlett taking 3rd.  (Sidenote, Trevor went over by 30 seconds during the competition which equals a 30 point deduction from his total score). 

Also, congrats to Jonathan Jarrow for winning the first ever NCRBC Brewers Cup!

We are very excited to have Ryan be the 3rd confirmed person to join us on our big Barista trip to Brazil this July!  Also, some exciting developments, we have finalized our dates, July 10th-19th 2011.  Sarah Allen from Barista Magazine is confirmed on the trip, as well as Mr Italy himself Giovanni Simonelli is now coming.  This will be Giovanni's 1st trip ever to origin.  We are so excited to have those two industry icons along with us. 

Congrats to all the competitors this year!

I am off to LA this weekend for the SWRBC.

-Noah