Western Regional Barista Competition

I'd like to give kudos to my colleague Joshua Lurie of FoodGPS for covering the WRBC so thoroughly this past weekend. He told me to drop by, and I thought I'd only stick around for a few minutes to see some baristas whip up specialty espresso drinks, but the competition was engrossing and I stayed nearly 2 hours.

First, the signature drinks the baristas made were fanciful, delicate and sophisticated, and involved such diverse ingredients as geleed orange juice, burnt caramel and a vanilla egg cream. The other interesting aspect, at least to me, was the way they all talked about the flavor profiles of their beans. Having just returned from wine-tasting in Santa Ynez, it was fascinating to hear the same terms being thrown around about coffee as about wines.

All in all, it was a really cool event, and I love Josh's coverage of it! You can check it out here: http://www.foodgps.com/review/wrbc-champion-announced/