To the victor belong the spoils.

Well the main course of this post is the video below. It’s sloppily edited and composed, but I hope it will give a flavour of the day. Being a judge for the semi-finals on the preceding day I did get to taste several of the finalists drinks as well as those of some of the other semi-finalists, and I can attest that I was surprised at how very high the overall standard was.

We have a new champion in Colin Harmon, who will represent Ireland in Atlanta in the April World Barista Championships. I think there are many who work in coffee in Ireland who may not have known Colin before the finals, and in some quarters his name wasn’t being mentioned as a potential winner (simply because he was a relative unknown – not because they thought he was crap). To the rest of us, who have seen how he has immersed himself in the deep end of coffee since ditching his career in finance (less than 1 year ago), there was little surprise. As his father said to me after the win, Colin has his family bored to tears listening to him go on about coffee. Well done mate, all those late nights have paid-off.

I make no apologies about the choice of songs on the clip, but I do apologise for the audio levels at the end and the interlacing, I may rectify that at some stage.

For now, enjoy…

2009 Irish Barista Championship from The Other Black Stuff on Vimeo.

PS if you click on through to where the video is hosted on Vimeo the quality is better (HD) and the interlacing is a lot less drastic.

HERE

Hope to have a review of the Behmor up by the end of the week, but in the meantime…

Behmor Coffee Roaster from The Other Black Stuff on Vimeo.

After a month of hiatus on the site, which entailed creating the new look and format, here’s some meagre content…

As you can see, I picked up some new toys, most notable of which was a Brewtus III, all the way from the good people of Casa Barista in the Netherlands.

Espresso: Anticipation from The Other Black Stuff on Vimeo.

Anticipation Espresso Vs. Guinness from The Other Black Stuff on Vimeo.