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Gwilym Davies 2009 UK Barista Champion

4 Mar

Congratulations to Gwilym Davies who has just been crowned the 2009 UK Barista Champion. I’ve just thrown this post up for people who want to know more about this great barista. (click here for full post with embedded media.)

Gwilym works outdoor coffee carts at two busy London markets. He uses coffee from East London’s Square Mile Roasters.

Gwilym’s winning espresso was a 50/50 blend made up of Finca San Jose Pulped Natural Red Catuaí from Erwin Mierisch and family in Nicaragua, and an El Molino de Santa Rita Washed Orange Bourbon from Jose Antonio Salaverria’s farm in El Salvador.

During the the final Gwilym’s espresso and signature drink attained the highest scores. The idea behind his signature drink was to enhance flavours that were already in the espresso he was working with. He created an infusion of butter, cinamon, orange peel, muscovado syrup, and dark chocolate that he added to the espresso.

Here is Gwilym’s semi-final performance:
http://www.viddler.com/simple/32717bbb/

Here’s Gwilym’s championship-winning final performance:
http://www.viddler.com/player/63f6f5e8/
Here are all the videos from the UKBC Finals.

Here is a video of the results and an interview with Gwilym:
http://www.viddler.com/player/ad07df2/

Here’s a podcast about Gwilym.

http://starbarista.googlepages.com/Episode_1_Gwillem.mp3

(Note: At the time of recording Gwilym was using beans from a different London roastery.)

Click here to download this podcast.

Here are some photos of Gwilym at work on Whitecross Market

Below is a map showing the locations of Gwilym’s coffee carts.
http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=104091204455281198860.0004645d4dd3f70e7d302&ll=51.5258,-0.081394&spn=0.007797,0.022649&output=embed&s=AARTsJopiEQXUM95lsYxTwXQELwGDRd2bg
View Larger Map

Taste of New Zealand Espresso at Square Mile

14 Sep

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I am lucky to live in London’s Bethnal Green neighbourhood on a multitude of counts – that number has increased with the recent opening of Square Mile Coffee roasters less than a five minute walk from my flat.

One evening last week they hosted a tasting of espressos from New Zealand. The event was attended by 45 people and all proceeds were donated to charity. In just over an hour barista James Hoffman (pictured above) pulled more than 160 shots of the four espressos. You can read more about it on Square Mile Coffee’s own blog here.

Square Mile was started up earlier this year by James Hoffmann (World Barista Champion 2007), Anette Moldvaer (World Coffee Cup Tasting Champion 2007) and Stephen Morrissey (World Barista Champion 2008). These people bring a wealth of experience with them and it shows in their coffees – over the last couple of months I’ve been drinking their espresso at a few coffee carts around town and I look forward to it being more widely available as they convince more cafes and restaurants to pull their espresso.

Visit flickr to see more of my photos from the New Zealand espresso evening.