Hu Ying, the player who reached the semifinals of WBC in 2016, the strength of Chinese baristas is growing.

The whole team was very happy to win the championship trophy.

The competition is not only shown by baristas, but also requires a lot of efforts from a lot of people before there will be a final result. For baristas, the experience during the competition is the most valuable gain. "visible" and "invisible" are truly recorded in this experience, "visible" is the performance on the court, and "invisible" is the time and thinking invested by the barista and the whole team in order to make the coffee in the cup better.

We have always believed that participating in the competition has greatly improved our coffee operation standards and raised it to a new level, which leads to higher quality in the end.

The ultimate direction of competition and operation is the same, or a good cup of coffee. I have started this job since I graduated from college. In the past 10 years, we have made a lot of adjustments and thoughts in the three aspects of "service, environment and products". Now, the product is the focus of our focus.

* what kind of race beans do you choose?

Choosing the coffee beans to participate in the competition is very important and difficult. In the selection process, the key is that you need to seriously consider the bean you're going to share with the judges--

* do you like the smell?

* do you think it can express your coffee philosophy?

Can your baker bake it?

* are there enough beans to support your training?

This year's WBC competition, from the division to the finals, we are looking for different beans. According to our own economic conditions and strength, as well as the time of the competition, we all use a Costa Rican Tara bead producing area multi-tower mountain area, washing treatment, coffee varieties are rosy summer coffee raw beans.

Baking and extraction

I love this bean's obvious grapefruit and cranberry flavor, delicate and soft fruit acid, as well as good touch and finish. The baker and I recorded detailed test data for each baking batch, and based on the recorded information, we tried to make more attempts and explorations in baking and extraction, different bean grinders, different coffee machines, and even use different roasters to test its performance. Through correct roasting, extraction and reasonable expression, the full communication between baristas and bakers can greatly improve the coffee experience of customers.

The story of coffee and raw beans

In the process of preparing for the competition, we found that the introduction of this raw bean is really very little. We have read all the information we can find about Costa Rican coffee, whether in Chinese or English, but we still think it is not enough. We still want to know more and know more.

At this time, the usual accumulation slowly reflects its value and significance, as I mentioned in the "Ct&i" interview, the Internet is a very good channel to help us understand coffee. The photo below was taken by a friend I met on Weibo and communicated with via email. A long time ago, Lu Yuan "brushed" the Weibo of many baristas and coffee shops on Weibo, and he could even remember the clothes many coffee celebrities wore for sharing meetings. After we decided to use Costa Rican coffee beans, he recommended that I follow a Weibo friend who "seems awesome, but we don't know" who works in Costa Rica, because the Weibo hasn't been updated for a long time. I tried to contact her in a private message, only to get a reply, and then we started communicating by email.

I learned a lot from her about the description of the origin and the way the coffee was handled. Her introduction was very picturesque and really made me "see" the nature of growing coffee there. The following three pictures were given to me by her (all three pictures of coffee producing areas were used with the consent of the photographer).

I think many coffee practitioners do not live in an environment full of celebrities and a lot of information, but if you really want to do something well, it is not difficult, you can use a lot of tools and methods to get information.

We have learned that Cumbres de Dota (Tashan Manor), run by the Ramon Gutierrez Alvarado family, has grown Rosa coffee in this area from 1600 to 1700 meters above sea level since 1990. We would like to find out if there are any interesting stories or planting details that we can share with our customers during the period from 1990 (planting) to 2015 (we chose it as a race bean). It will impress customers more about this delicious coffee-unfortunately, it hasn't been found yet.

Maybe in the future we will have a chance to go to the manor and tell the landlord face to face that we won a championship with your beans. I believe this will be a wonderful story.

We hope that every message we send to our customers will give them some experience, so in the part of the competition lines about raw beans, we only introduce messages that express our own understanding.

Thanks to all the people who have given us advice and help here. I think the best thanks to them and them is to work hard and take this competition seriously enough.

Practice the competition process

For me, the process of "practice" is the same as the process of constantly recognizing, thinking, verifying ideas, finding problems and finding solutions after entering the coffee industry.

At the beginning, it is a process of "from thinking to do". "want to get" does not mean that we can "do it well". At first we didn't know exactly what we could do, so we thought from the consumer's point of view: what kind of cafe would we like to visit again? We put forward three points of "service, environment and product" and think that all three points can be done. In the process of verifying the idea, that is, in the daily operation, we find it difficult to balance these three points at the same time. After finding this problem, we try to focus on the product before we continue to verify it. The same is true of the competition, the coffee is the most important. Therefore, we want to focus on the coffee itself in the competition and in the daily operation.

"following the process" is a process of finding problems, verifying ideas, and finding solutions, and the number of times this process is repeated determines the number of problems solved.

For example: when I was taking the tray from the console to the judges' table, there was a turn. In practice, when I turned around, my measuring cup slipped out of the tray and fell to the ground and broke.

This is the discovery of the problem, this situation is likely to happen in the 15 minutes of the official game, is this a risk I can bear? I can't take it! Then I have to find a way to solve the problem while practicing. This is the same as operation, the market is very cruel, there are not too many opportunities for trial and error.

In order to solve this problem, we first tested the use of various materials to make anti-skid mats.

After trial and error, instead of using a non-slip pad, we finally made a table with grooves so that we could put the cup into the grooves. This scheme made us no longer have the problem of slipping when turning around in the following 50 to 60 exercises.

During the practice, we made countless videos, all of which were "discovering problems, verifying ideas, and finding solutions".

In doing so, I will think of a sentence (I forgot which book I read): pick the ripe fruit and find the connection between them, once we take a step forward, everything seems to become easier.

Desktop cards and mats are also designed and modified repeatedly through this process. Designer Rebecca is a regular customer of our store, she also went to Shanghai to watch the competition, the design concept comes from children's three-dimensional books, we hope to express the message more clearly, so that we have the final appearance.

The champion is a reward for the whole team. I know very well that what a person can do is only one point, and the whole noodle is supported by everyone, so I am very grateful to every partner who has made efforts in this competition. I am very grateful to the people who constantly remind me to take care of my team buddies, build trust step by step, and take me for a long time in the process.

Champions are not enough for the progress of the industry as a whole. The judges of the competition who gave me encouragement and advice, I can't mention everyone's name, and they love no less than all the baristas who are trying to fight for this honor. From the Guiyang division in 2013 to the final when I finally won the championship, every score sheet given to me by the judges was a suggestion to me, and I tried my best to understand and improve it, which helped me a lot.