Nordic Barista Cup Day Three and Wrap-Up

Picking up where we left off, since the pool party the night before was so coffee-intensive, the Nordic Cup decided to give us a nature break in the morning. What’s known as the “Golden Circle” tour covers some of Iceland’s most treasured natural and historic sites…I believe the certification for these parks is similar to that of Cup of Excellence if I remember Susie Spindler’s lecture on Thursday clearly.

Our bus pulled out of Minniborgir in the morning at 7:00am for this brief moment of pure tourism while the competitors were whisked straight back to Reykjavík to meet with the artists each team would collaborate with for that afternoon’s fundraising auction. Our tour began at Gullfuss, the famous “golden” waterfall that…let me say, having been to Niagara Falls many many times…was pretty friggin fantastic. I’m not sure it was actually gold, and I did not see the “goats and rainbows” my friend Jeremy insisted would be there, but it was pretty amazing.

But it was no Geysir — yup, the geyser that started it all, Iceland’s geysir blew all of us away. Approximately every seven to eight minutes, in fact.

And lastly, we visited Þingvellir. A place most famous for being the original location of the national govermnent doesn’t sound exciting — but boy is it ever pretty.

We were deposited back at the art museum in downtown Reykjavík in time to find ourselves lunch (…hot dog stand anyone??) and get back quickly for the Nordic Roasters competition. This was one of the best and most interesting events of the weekend for me: nine coffees prepared all to the same specifications (on Bunn brewers served in paper cups…!) and served up on trays for every attendee, barista competitor and member of the random public to taste and rate. As we were in a big open hall of the Reykjavík art museum, everyone pretty much just sat on the floor to taste and think and evaluate. I wish I had taken better cupping notes, but coffees 3, 5 and 7 were my runners up…3 was by far the strangest (very light, very far-out…no my cupping notes are not usually that useless) but I went with number 7. This would later turn out to be the Tim Wendelboe entry, confirming the Norwegian roaster’s continued possession of the Nordic Roaster silver platter for another year!

Concurrent to this, each team had set up a booth in the hall (which was now open to the general public) to showcase coffees, art works and merchandise, the proceeds from all of which would go to this year’s charity, a children’s hospital in Costa Rica. If this all sounds like a lot going on at once, it was. For instance: Team Norway had established an espresso stand serving Costa Rican and El Salvadoran espressos (which you could order in a tower), while they also exhibited works of art (generally horse scenes on coffee filters!) painted by their artist-collaborator, while exhibiting a set of Norway-themed sock dripper coffee filters up for auction later, and building a large tower out of empty paper Kaffitar and Te og Kaffi coffee cups that they would later auction off the privelege of knocking over. (Steve Leighton of Has Bean coffee managed to take a flying dive into the whole thing to everyone’s jealousy and amazement.)

The other teams made similarly inventive stabs at promoting all the aspects of coffee that make it wonderful: team Sweden sponsored an unusual latte art throwdown that luckily stopped just short of nudity; team Denmark held an amateur cup tasting competition for anyone to enter, and so on. Some of the booths were more coffee-educational, while others allowed you the opportunity to purchase a team member as your date for the night. Whatever builds community, right?!

The exhibition was followed by an exciting auction of many of the art and coffee items (and nearly everything that was used in the NBC, including the body soap from the foam bubble persistence demonstration), hosted by Tim Wendelboe. Grab bags were assembled on the fly — Espresso Parts pitcher rinsers and knock boxes went home with several lucky bidders, and the amazing blue-black swirled tampers with each Scandanavian country engraved into the top were hotly contested. Leave it to Mike Phillips to outbid actual Dane Klaus Thomsen on his own nation’s tamper! Apparently Mike had foresight as this tamper is probably even more valuable now… In the most impressive feat of absurd bidding ever, though, the annual auctioning off of Klaus Thomsen’s goat trophy brought €2000, auctioned off to Anders of Solberg & Hansen, who gets possession of the goat for one short year and the pleasure of having made an amazing charitable donation on behalf of his company. Wow.

At 5:00pm the hall shut down and everyone went home to change for the night’s final event: a gala dinner with talent-show entertainment provided by all of the teams, this time working intermingled together — competition had ended and it was time to do magic shows for ourselves. The night’s theme of Dolly Parton, Elvis, Björk and Elton John leaned heavily towards Elvis and Elton…but emcee Jay Lejewski did look particularly stunning as a Dancer in the Dark era Björk. (Who knew he looked so good in a dress?)

We were subjected, I mean treated, to three acts: a magic show (featuring Iceland’s Pálmar as an amazing mentalist and Denmark’s Morten as a super creepy uhhh levitator?), a dramatic play about the discovery of coffee….featuring several Dolly-Parton-attired Nordic barista ladies down on their knees as Kaldi’s goats….and, lastly, a completely atonal group rendition of “Leaving Las Vegas” reworded to “Steaming With Vapour”. Not your average coffee competition. Wow.

At this point it seemed hard to remember there had been a contest going on amidst everything else all weekend, but it was time to announce the winners: in fifth place….in their own country…Iceland. Beating them by only one point…the Finns! In third, no doubt hindered by the feverish state of team leader Rasmus, Norway! In second place, the inestimably talented Sweden. And in first place, the winner of the 2009 Nordic Barista Cup…my secret favorite all along, and brimming with “X Factor” throughout the weekend…Denmark!!!!

And while the Danes went home with the spoils of victory, which includes a trip to Costa Rica for the entire team, all who attended the Nordic Cup left with (hopefully) so much more than embarrassing hot tub stories. The opportunity to interact with such a cross-section of Scandanavian coffee all at once was amazing — being able to taste and talk and view the subtle distinctions in approaches to coffee and in the cultures represented was amazing. And for the non-Scandanavians, what an inspiration to raise our game community-buildingwise. The traditional coffee competitions that adhere to the WBC format tend to be attached to events that switch rapidly between the standard, strait-laced competition format (four cappuccinos, four espressos, four signature drinks in fifteen minutes…and your apron had better be clean!) and wild parties at night where competitors and coffee companies try to destress long enough to meet each other and talk coffee and build friendships and business contacts that get us all further in the world of special coffee. What the Nordic Cup does is simply mix the two continuously, rewarding competitors for inspiring their team to victory through passion and spirit, and rewarding all who attend by showcasing this crazy passion and spirit to inspire us. There’s no reason foam can’t be fun, coming up with an Aeropress method under (aero)pressure can’t be thrilling, and really what better way to learn to cooperate and appreciate modern coffee technology by setting your paint-can coffee roaster on fire?! But I’m not really kidding: the lectures and competitions brought together the delight and geekery of coffee, while forcing people to work together in ways that really set examples for all of us in any aspect of the industry. For me, it was an honor to represent Espresso Parts ,whose generosity towards equipping the competition and providing awesome things to auction off for charity fall right in line with the marriage of positivity and fun that the Nordic Cup represents and that coffee should represent. I’ll never be able to work it off with simple blog posts, but I hope that by telling the story in words and pictures I have been able to convey this sense of inspiration. Nordic Cup, you are awesome. Espresso Parts, you are too.

Now…get packing, I’ll see you at Coffee Fest Seattle!