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Last weekend Gimme barista Liz Clark performed in the Northeast Regional Barista Competition. She had been working with our Guatemala Santa Elena for the past few months, learning to coax out a range of flavors from her shots. It's the beauty of this coffee that made her decide to compete with it, and the versatility of it drove her presentation. In a Barista Competition participants are asked to prepare twelve drinks in fifteen minutes. They must make four single espressos, four cappuccinos, and four signature drinks of their own creation. The competitors are judged by seven judges on consistency, presentation, coffee knowledge and overall deliciousness of their drinks. The performance is more than just time to quickly make drinks, it's time for baristas to share their love of, and connection to, coffee with an interested audience. Baristas know that they are often the face that is associated with the coffee they are serving, but also that they are just the end point of a long journey.

There is a big responsibility in being a barista, many hands have touched the coffee they have the honor of serving and ensured it's quality before it ever reaches the espresso machine. When you ask a professional barista to define their job and why it's important, most of them answer with something about the responsibility of accurately representing the flavor profile of a particular place, of the positive change that can happen in the world when people buy sustainable luxuries, and of the importance of knowing their beans and equipment so thoroughly that they are able to tell a story in taste. Liz put it beautifully when she said during her performance that "When you are a working barista, you get to know your coffee so well that you can play it like an instrument; there are many notes to choose from." Baristas also, undeniably, add their own hands to the supply chain of coffee, and they often impart a touch of their own personality into the coffee they serve. It was the idea of the personality of the barista that Liz decided to play with in her specialty drink

For her specialty drink Liz decided to highlight another side of the Santa Elena by serving another single espresso, with nothing added to it, that tasted completely different from the shot she served first as the espresso part of her competition. She changed the way the shots tasted by adjusting the particle size and dose of her shot, something baristas do daily to finesse their drinks. By changing these parameters she was able to present two different versions of the Santa Elena, highlighting the versatility of her coffee, and also offer an homage to the barista. "The barista" as Liz put it "who combines the personality of the coffee with their own personality to create a unique reflection of the present moment." One of the shots she served had flavors of green apple, crisp nectarine, and while grape, with the mouthfeel of silky flower petals. The other shot offered up a deeper taste, one reminiscent of red delicious apples, raisins, and the scent of drying red rose. 

If a big part of a baristas job is to to accurately represent the terroir of a coffee, then which version of the Santa Elena is the correct one? Liz would answer "Both! There are proper extraction techniques, but no incorrect flavor profile. A good coffee should have personality, and it is allowed mood swings." She got the idea for her specialty drink from drinking and working with Leftist, Gimme's signature espresso blend, on a daily  basis. The Leftist always has a wood like, or smoky, element to it. One day she noticed, with that note in particular, that baristas played with it depending on what they personally enjoyed. Some baristas were offering thick ashy tastes, others sweet cedar chips like the type used for smoking meat, some found a dry wood quality, and others managed the crisp green scent of a freshly stripped branch. Different expressions of the same type of taste. This was a meaningful moment in her coffee carreer and the one she chose to share with the judges.

Espresso is a very interesting way to prepare coffee, and I am grateful to Liz for pushing limits of different flavor possibilities.  Each espresso you drink is going to be slightly different each day; with each barista putting a slight stamp of their preference on the drinks they serve in an effort to share what they consider to be the very best.