The victory of this coffee blogger perfectly interprets the significance of the barista contest!

Recently, the American barista contest came to an end. Morgan Eckroth from Portland, Oregon won the championship. Different from some big barista contestants in the past, Morgan is already a coffee blogger with 7 million + fans before participating in the competition.

-Brooke Wolfe, Morgan Eckroth, Elisabeth Johnson from left to right

So from the time she announced her participation in the American barista contest, she recorded the whole competition preparation process through Vlog, and shared the whole competition process with all netizens live on the competition day! Millions of fans watch the game at the same time, she is not nervous, the judges should be very nervous …

The theme of this Morgan competition is to focus on the home coffee producers that have sprung up after the epidemic, hoping that their own coffee can be easily made at home. Unlike previous contestants, Morgan shared his drink-making ideas and recipes on social platforms in the run-up to the competition.

Morgan, who hopes fans can make and taste coffee with her, says coffee should be a creative coffee concept that tastes good, replicable, transformative, and easy to make at home.

We have seen many barista competitions in the past, and everyone will think that the contestants are very good. But often many contestants pay too much attention to the uniqueness of the drink and the performance of the production process, in the selection of coffee beans, brewing / blending methods and other materials, it is difficult for everyone to reproduce.

At the same time, because of the exquisite coffee flavor of Rosa coffee, the contestants over the years did not hesitate to invest heavily in the selection of coffee beans on the rose summer without batches / customized batches, so that after the competition, it is impossible for everyone to find these once excellent coffee beans, and no other varieties of coffee beans have a similar coffee flavor.

The prize of the competition is rich, but the competition level has not been substantially improved; the competition is dominated by Rosa coffee varieties; lack of relevant competition experience, too much emphasis on origin, variety, planting techniques, and complex scoring system make many judges "miss" many more potential coffee players (not that the judges are unprofessional); creative coffee is no longer creative The neglect of basic work skills has become a problem in the barista competition.

Of course, with the continuous improvement of the quality of coffee varieties, from 2020, we can gradually notice that many contestants begin to choose unexpected coffee varieties from Rose Summer to participate in the competition, although it is also a relatively rare coffee variety. For example, Diego Campos, the champion of WBC in 2021, and Matt Winton, the champion of WBrC, use Coffea Eugenioides (Eugenodis), the mother species of the Arabica variety, which is native to East Africa.

The leaves and fruits of this variety are smaller than those of Arabica, and although it is not particularly difficult to grow, their yield is indeed lower than that of Arabica, and the variety is still considered a rare or experimental coffee cultivation. The variety itself is sweet (perhaps because there is less bitterness of caffeine), and the coffee has cheerful, unusual flavors such as sesame candy, roasted marshmallows, lemon and cereal milk.

Back to the topic of Morgan ~ this time Morgan also uses this variety for the production of milk coffee. She used Eugene Oides coffee beans from St. Jay Manor in Colombia. 20g coffee powder extracted 35g coffee liquid with 50% frozen purified milk to maximize the sweetness of this variety of coffee beans. Milk coffee shows the overall flavor of cocoa, egg cake paste, chocolate ice cream and salted caramel.

But when it comes to espresso and creative coffee, Morgan chooses the more common Rume sudan variety, also from Sanjay Manor in Colombia, which is treated by anaerobic sun treatment. 19g Coffee Powder extract 40g Coffee liquid for 20 seconds. Judges need to use frozen cups and spoons to stir 10 times before drinking, espresso shows the overall flavor of roses, red grapefruit, honey syrup, papaya, white peach.

While Creative Coffee also uses espresso formula as the base, Morgan added that the espresso with floral and tropical fruit flavors can be restored in a similar way to other coffee beans, and every detail hopes that fans can make creative coffee with similar effects at home.

Four portions of espresso + 30g mango paste can produce a flavor similar to orange ice cream, followed by the addition of 25g lime sugar essential oil, which is mixed at 1:1 with white granulated sugar and ripened for 8 hours. add 30g orange blossom water to combine with espresso to produce rose water flavor, finally add a protein to increase the texture and a salt water to improve the sweetness of all materials. The flavor will also be more evenly integrated.

Finally, mix all kinds of raw materials with a cooking machine and then add ice cubes to shake to cool. Creative coffee shows the overall flavor of orange ice cream, Japanese pomelo, lemon Italian ice cream and rose water.

In fact, although the formula of this creative coffee looks complex, compared with the creative coffee in many competitions, this formula is highly playable. In daily life, we can find similar raw materials to adjust the formula to make coffee with similar flavor. Creative coffee focuses on highlighting the flavor characteristics of coffee itself through other ingredients.

Morgan's competition lines said: during the epidemic, people were unable to go to the store to spend money, giving birth to a large number of home coffee people. People began to delve into coffee and broaden the boundaries of coffee with their own ability. At the same time, it has also promoted the emergence of more coffee bloggers, and as one of the coffee bloggers, she has made it her duty to share professional coffee knowledge and promote boutique coffee.

After watching the Morgan competition, the code clerk very much agreed with Morgan's understanding of the coffee industry. If we want more people to fall in love with boutique coffee and learn more coffee knowledge, baristas can't do without the correct spread of coffee culture.

Professional coffee knowledge and understanding of the principle of coffee extraction are necessary for a barista, while for those who want to know / learn coffee, what the baristas have to do is to simplify the complex knowledge through understanding and then express and spread it.

Not everyone who drinks coffee has an in-depth understanding of coffee culture / knowledge. If a thing must be explained and communicated from a very professional point of view, it will only result in more people giving up on it.

In the post-epidemic era, more coffee bloggers have sprung up on various social platforms, which means that the coffee market is changing. From store consumption to home production, the consumption patterns of coffee consumers have also been greatly reformed. Go to the coffee shop to drink coffee in order to experience the specialty of baristas and learn to make coffee at home so that you can easily drink good coffee without having to go out.

So does this consumption pattern have an impact on cafes? Times are changing, business models are also changing, if you still stay in front of the epidemic waiting for guests to arrive to feel their own professional model may have an impact. But if you are willing to step out of the comfort zone and share your major with you in other ways, you may have more business, because it will allow netizens who are not in the same city to see you and remember you. This is a very valuable thing.

In the barista competition, which is blindly pursuing uniqueness and difficult for others to reproduce, Morgan's performance perfectly shows the generosity, self-confidence and love that professional baristas should have.

Photo Source: Internet MorganDrinksCoffee

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