In the Grinder - Our Daily Coffee Weblog

Noah:  Hello everyone, Joe and I just got back from BGA Camp-Pull-A-Shot in California.  It was a week full of professional development, fellowship, and making new friends while "glamping" near Santa Barbara, CA.  We had an incredible experience, and it was also just a perfect amount of ridiculous to keep things exciting.  This was my second year at camp.  Joe, this was your first year at camp, tell me about some things that stick out in your mind from camp...

Joe: The first thing pops into my head is Louie Poore's face, shadowed by a bull horn.  No, but seriously, so many baristas had so many questions this year. I feel as though Camp really attracted professionals who were looking to grow, full of curiosity and ready to have a blast with the coffee community.

Noah:  I totally agree.  People were excited and hungry for information.

You are now Level 1 and Level 2 certified. Congrats my man.  Also you are IDP certified, and you were able to test people all week, tell me about some interactions with those baristas and those questions they asked.  What left an impression on you?

Joe: I was feeling really guilty and kind of bad after day one. I had a lot of great baristas who were passionate and I could tell could work a bar with the best of them, but who did not perform to the level they wanted to on their practical tests. It was difficult to see them buckling under the pressure and nerves.

However, I then saw them throughout the week in classes, learning, asking questions, growing... I was able to retest a few on the last day. Wow! What a difference a few days makes. The baristas were nailing their tests and we were able to hand almost all of them certifications on Wednesday night.  It was affirmation to me that the BGA and SCAA are not only devoted to education, but executing.

Some questions I was asked... hmm.... Lots of cleaning questions. I was asked about what my favorite coffees were, roasters, you know... The questions that I couldn't answer really easily. It led to a lot of discussion about our coffee community in the US right now.

How 'bout you?

Noah: I taught two sessions of our Seed to Cup class on Tuesday morning, and in all honesty, I had flashbacks of our trip to Brasil with all the other Baristas.  I find that giving this course at an event where everyone is really hungry to learn compared to a disengaged audience, provide totally different results and give a much different vibe to the course.  In Brasil, you guys were totally on it...asking the right questions, creating thought provoking discussions about complex issues at origin, and I had a similar experience at camp.  I left the presentation open to questions during the entire presentation, so each course took on a life of its own.  I know I got a lot out of it for sure. 

The other thing that I really enjoyed was I got to be a nerd about running a bit by organizing the first ever BGA 5K.  We all gathered Wednesday morning at 7AM and ran 3 miles along the coast as the sun rose.  Pretty awesome way to start the day.  Toddy had an iced coffee table at the half way point, and that just added to the hilarity of a bunch of baristas running down the road in Santa Barbara. 

We did a coffee crawl before heading to camp.  What are your thoughts about the LA Coffee Scene?

Joe: I feel as though it is a lot like the rest of the US coffee scene. Great coffee made by great people who care. There seems to be a lot more business pushing toward simple espresso based drinks, like caps, shots and maccs than in a lot of other areas of the country. This is encouraging, as trends usually start in places like LA. Baristas really want to strip the coffee down to the basics in order to really put the intrinsic nature of coffee on stage. Baristas in LA are able to do this a lot more. However, they still seemed to have a lot of excitement about coffee. The guys at Handsome showed us this at a high degree, I would say. They were so stoked we stopped in.

What were some highlights for you?

Noah: I liked that we were able to get together with really awesome friends and do the crawl as a group.  Jason from Batdorf and his wife April, Sarah from La Marzocco, Tony from Tonx, Jon from Coffee Tools and his wife, and Todd from Starbucks all got together to enjoy this day.  I thought all the BS was stripped away.  We were just able to enjoy the coffee and enjoy totally different perspectives on roasting, barista skills, and shop aesthetics in a 4 hour period. All totally unique, valid, and awesome in their own right. 

OK big question...the liklihood that there will be an East Coast Camp Pull-A-Shot this summer is very high, if we get to go and teach and take courses again, what would you do differently or what would you want to get out of it that you didn't get an opportunity to do at this camp?

Joe : This camp I worked the entire event. I didn't have any time to actually take courses and sit and think about things. I would like to take some courses next year. I was also a table lead at all of the courses I helped with. I would like to own a course next Camp. I want to develop some interesting courses in the future. I'm not sure how viable they would be before next Summer, but it would be cool to teach one then. You?

Noah: I really dig being able to proctor certification testing.  There is just something raw and real about seeing someone who has clearly worked hard and studied get an opportunity to showcase their skills and earn it.  I actually would be the guy who could sit and give certifications all day if it meant people got to leave with accomplishing what they set out to accomplish at camp.  So, I hope to do that, and also, I need to nail that level 2 certification, and that is a definite goal of mine for 2012.

Thanks Joe, thanks to all the shops that had us on the crawl (Intelligentsia, Paper or Plastik, Handsome, and Proof, and thank you BGA volunteers and SCAA staff, especially Marcus Boni, Carrie Gibson, Amber Sather, Ildi Revi, Lily Kubota, Adra Aragon, and Maria Hill for putting together an amazing camp. 

Here's to BGA Camp (s) in 2012!