It has been a week back Stateside and Neil & I are beginning to recover from our trip to Victoria, British Columbia, where we volunteered at the Western Canadian Regional Barista Competition. Thanks to our hosts Reg and Julia Barber, we had a delightful stay on Vancouver Island.

Judging the barista competition. Photo by Reg Barber.

It started off, as mentioned, with the WCRBC. Once again I was given the opportunity to judge the competition, and as usual I learned a great deal about competition in the process. As a sensory judge I discovered some key points about timing and aesthetics, as well as continuing to differentiate among very strong competitors. I was very surprised at how well all of the competitors did, especially as many of them were first time competitors. Of course the congratulations goes to Kyle of Artigiano, but with a spread of only 24 points, all the finalists really did an outstanding job. Plus I had the opportunity to meet and spend some time with great judges, including Andrea Piccolo, Mike Yung, and Brent Fortune, and as usual I tried to soak up as much insight and opinion from the experts as possible.

Neil did some tech judging and wore himself out in the process, but we managed to keep him fed at all the parties and meals, including chinese food with Jay Caragay, a Salmon BBQ in the Vancouver Island countryside, and an epic breakfast at The Roost Farm Bakery. We also had some amazing croissants at Fol Epi, a bakery near the competition.

But the real fun was had on Monday. We stayed an extra day and managed to get Reg Barber all to ourselves, and as usual, he outdid himself playing the host. We went on a tour of almost every coffee shop in Victoria, with highlights including Habit Coffee, the new location of Discovery coffee, 2 Percent Jazz, Cafe Artigiano, and Fernwood Coffee Company. At each stop along the way there was another friendly coffee person eager to talk coffee. In between the coffee stops, we also visited Reg’s workshop and we had the rare opportunity to see the first place he ever made tampers – under a deck at his first house in Victoria.

Just the shelf that houses the RB inventory at Reg’s current workshop has more square footage than Reg’s entire first workshop in Victoria, pictured here.

Of course the coffee and the experience was all wonderful. We were so excited to have the Barbers host us in our first international event, and they still managed to blow us away with their hospitality! I highly recommend a visit to their lovely town for a visit.