Our trip to Seattle.
Day one of our stay was a bit of a whirl wind. We got off the plane and had about 2 hours to get to the NWRBC to see our friends from Victrola compete. So before checking in to our hotel, we headed straight for Victrola to meet up with superstar roasters Tony and Chad to head over to the comp. We got there in plenty of time as the entire weekend seemed to be running about a half hour late. As some of you have probably heard about, there were some problems with the tampers getting stuck in the portafilters at the NWRBC. During Kyle's set-up, he was reduced to hammering the PF against the counter to get his ergo-packer out. This ended up being an issue for several competing baristas, but nothing was really ever done about it. Kyle's routine was awesome, much like his signature drink, "The Awesome". We saw quite a few people's presentations, and Kyle really seemed to stand out. The judges, however, saw things a little differently as Kyle didn't make it to the finals. Daniel did. And Daniel was fuc*king sweet. The guy did a shot with the judges. It rocked. We met a few of the coffee illuminati hovering around the comp site and headed out. We skipped out on the party at Zoka, and went to bed early.
Day Two:
Enter V2, Victrola's beautiful new roasting location on Pike. Also, the site of the debut of the Clover 1. The Clover is the shit. Perfectly brewed, by-the-cup, coffee. This was one of the first times I have had a cup of coffee that tastes the way the grounds smell. Zander, the rep on hand from Clover, was overworked to say the least. And the poor two group Synesso was gathering dust.
The NWRBC finals were next. We caught a few finalists, but we were mostly there to see Daniel. He did very well, again, and talked the judge's ears off with a heart warming tale of the origin of his espresso cups. In the end, he placed fourth, I think. I should note, Daniel did not pratice his routine once before the comp. He said it would make him to stiff. I guess it worked.
We left the NWRBC and took some time to do some non-coffee related stuff around Capitol Hill. Got an awesome dinner, and headed for the Elysian Room Brewery for a little after party. Well, big after party. Beer was on the house and flowing freely thanks to Duane from Stumptown. At one point the kegs tapped out, so Duane was forced to wave some 100s at the keg guy to keep us in full supply. I saw Billy Wilson whine to Mark Prince about his scores, that was cool. And Melissa and I got to enjoy a "relaxing moment" out on the patio with Stephen Vick and Bronwen Serna. We met more of the celeb-baristas wandering around, and took off for some nice drunken rest.
Day Three:
This was our last day in town, and daylight savings played a cruel joke on us. We were supposed to meet up with Tony and Kyle at Victrola around 10:30am. We arrived at 9:30, hungover, pissed off. Tony was there moments before we were attempting to run off for some breakfast, and so the drama began. I was supposed to roast with Tony in efforts to boost my mediocre roasting skills into coffee-god status. Melissa was suppose to do some drink training with Kyle in efforts to boost her coffee-god status to alpha-coffee-god status. Gier, a roaster and cafe owner from Canada stopped by to watch the spectical. And a spectical it was. Upon firing up the roaster, Tony's face took on a somber tone. The main burners wouldn't fire. After hours of head scratching and fiddling, Gier took off to retrive someone from the Diedrich booth at Coffeefest. In the meantime, just about every competing barista in town stopped by to see the famous Victrola roastery. Only to be welcomed by a bunch of sad faces. Kyle showed up to do Melissa's training, which I decided to take over due to my "shot issues". And the morning was pretty much a loss. We went out to check on our friend's aparment, walk around the city, and count down the hours til we had to say goodbye. We stopped by V2 one last time to bid farewell to our friends at Victrola. Melissa pulled me an awesome shot on the 2 group Synesso they had set up, we met a few more nice coffee folks, and said bye-bye.