Ahhhh Hindsight....

I love this time building up to competitions. We spend ages working on details, finding areas to improve, innovations and practice. In one week everything comes together (all going to plan and fingers crossed) and we get to see the results of our hardwork. Something that I always find, is that these couple of weeks are often when we make some of he most dramatic and significant discoveries, those elusive eureka moments.

It can be frustrating the things that become clear this at this time, exciting, but frustrating that we have spent so long working on all of the details. An example is with the coffee. I dont want to say exactly because I want to keep it fresh for next week, but I have been fortunate to have some great coffees to work with this year, far better than those we have been able to access before (other than a couple of gems along the way like some of the Mountain Tops and Daterra's). Right the way through training, heats and then finals I was making some incredible tasting coffees (if you dont mind me saying so myself!lol), but there were a couple of small tasting issues I wanted to overcome. They were only small, but I could not massage better results through so many techniques, until last week. Then it was so obvious I couldn't believe I had missed it before.

These learning points are for me one of the main reasons I compete. Never has there been such a good way to push the boundaries of our knowledge for a barista. On Friday we were kicking back after a couple of dozen espressos and reflecting (laughing more to the point) about some of the things that we used to do, that just seem ludicrous now. At the time they make so much sense, but the reality is they are more like a square wheel. Roll on the new stuff!

I will post some pics tonight. (fingers crossed).

Just few days till we leave. Cant wait to see you all again.