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These results are being posted late, and there will likely be more analysis once score sheets are reviewed and there has been time to ponder, but the results were:

6th place - Joel May - Fratello Coffee Roasters
5th place - Spencer Viehweger - JJ Bean Coffee Roasters
4th place - Rob Kettner - Fernwood Coffee Company
3rd place - our very own Chad Moss from Transcend Coffee!
2nd place - Anthony Benda - Café Myriade
1st place and the 2009 Canadian Barista Champ - Kyle Straw - Caffe Artigiano

Just a few of the pics from day one. More to come once day two is done. Click thumbnails for larger image.

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Well it has been a long day (9 am in London right now).  It was a good day, and everyone performed exceptionally well.  Having said that, only 6 out of 15 get to move on.  We are delighted that Chad is once again moving on to the finals tomorrow, and wish him the best of luck.  We have no idea how things panned out today, apart from knowing that the top six were the top six.  The scores won't be revealed until after the competition is over.

Josh also did an amazing job given that this was his first foray into the national competition scene.  By his own admission, and a brief glance at the score sheets, Josh had a few technical errors.  Dispite that, his coffee was absolutely stellar, and we know that he can easily erase any and all technical glitches for next year as he is one of the nations top baristas.  Unfortunately I have no pictures from today, as I was too busy chasing off twitter hack jobs and chatting up those watching the 2009 CNBC on Ustream.  At one point today, we (the CNBC) had our feed featured on the Ustream.tv home page, and we had over 2000 viewers (that was fun).  Tomorrow will be a great final, as everyone competing is an exceptional barista and performer.

On  a lighter note, we had a great time at Gianni's afterwards, and were treated to lots of delicious home made entres and some quail.  Then we all headed off to SALT which was a great way to finish off a long day, tasting some fun wines and eating nicely sized tapas which were just right for the end of the day.  A cool little wine bar on Blood Alley, which is inspirational for me, someone who aspires to open a wine bar in Edmonton in the next couple of years.  Thanks to everyone who cheered and supported us today.  We hope to do real well in the morrow.  Cheers.

Here are the 6 finalists for the Canadian National Barista Championship, in no particular order.

Joel May - Fratello, Kyle Straw - Artigiano, Anthony Benda - Myriade, Chad Moss - Transcend Coffee, Rob Pender - Fernwood, Spencer Vieghweger - JJ Bean.

Congrats to all the 15 competitors who performed amazingly today.

Video chat rooms at Ustream

Michelle and I made our way from Lethbridge this morning, traversing icy roads to the parking lot called "Deerfoot Trail" in Calgary.  We made it to the airport in time, and then sat on the tarmac for an hour as we waited for our plane to be de-iced and made ready for safe flying amidst a weird October snow storm on the prairies.  Despite the odd beginnings, Vancouver proved to be her normal green self, and offered refuge from the early and abrupt taste of winter on plains.

We connected with Chad, Josh and James at the airport, rented the mini van and made our way to the Convention Centre.  As usual we were not surprised to find the competition floor, in disarray, and despite the usual frenetic and haphazard coordination, the Barista Championship will come off just fine during the next couple of days.  Les wants to try a live colour commentator thing, which I will likely be a part of, along with a telestrator which ought to be fun.  We have decided to go with Ustream, so tune into this link to follow all of the action tomorrow.  Chad competes 12th, and Josh is last in the 15th spot, so you won't have to get up early to watch, which is good as most of you have already gone to bed (I should too, but I still have a bit of Grenache to finish, along with this post).  It was good to reconnect with a bunch of great coffee folk, including Aurthor from Wicked, the infamous Reg Barber, Anthony from Cafe Myriad in Montreal, the crew with Sammy, etc.

The day ended well, as the Transcend contingency all made our way to Chambar for an awesome meal, which had everyone, including Chad and Thea (no small feat) raving about the food and the experience.  So this serves as a formal foodie recommendation, next time you are in Vancouver.  OK, it is late, and I need to sleep.  No rush to wake up early though, as I am not judging, and the guys are not competing until after lunch.  Good night all!

If you are wanting to watch the live stream of the 2009 Canadian National Barista Championship, stay tuned as we are still trying to figure out what is going on.  The company that runs the Canadian Coffee and Tea show, and the championship is somehow tied to Bell for all of their streaming.  This might present some problems.  So at worst their will be a URL for chatting and a separate URL for the live video streaming.  At best, we will have it fixed and all coordinated on one site.  Nevertheless, we will have an update for you tomorrow.

Well, it is the 11th of October, and the National Barista Championship is about to begin.  Josh and Chad are geared up, and are packing their bags for the flight to Vancouver.  Michelle, James, Thea and I are also along for the ride to cheer and work towards an Alberta championship.  I was slated in to judge, but today, I withdrew my name from the judging roster so that I could focus on the boys from transcend.  So I will be relegated to polishing glassware, typing on the blog, and taking pictures.  On one hand I enjoy the judging, and on the other, I am glad to be on the side lines, watching and cheering (loudly, biasedly) for the Transcend crew.  Stay tuned on the Transcend blog for more details on the live streaming on Wednesday and Thursday.  Keep our guys in you thoughts as we hope to have both Josh and Chad in the finals on Thursday.  Happy Thanksgiving all, we at Transcend are very thankful for all of the people who continue to support us and what we believe in.

One of the things I love about the international specialty coffee community is the general spirit of selflessness. That may sound contrived, but there’s really no other way to put it. Let me explain.

When Poul and Chad were in Costa Rica this past spring, they visited a fantastic little coffee farm called Café Sin Limites. They got to know the farmer, Jamie Cárdenas Rojas and were quite surprised and impressed with his dedication to quality. The quality of the operation, and the quality of the coffee impressed us enough to buy it and roast it both as a drip and an espresso. It’s also the coffee Chad has chosen to use for competition this year.

While Poul and Chad were in Costa Rica, some very bad weather hit and one of the structures that Jamie uses to dry coffee just blew away in the wind.

This moved our roaster, Chad to do something to try to help Jamie out. So we held a little benefit here at Transcend in conjunction with Slow Food Edmonton to raise some money to help replace the structure. The story up to this point is already old news, and probably best understood by watching the video we made about it.

But here’s the update:

We thought we were doing something nice, something to benefit a hard working coffee farmer that would be hard pressed to replace an entire drying structure on his own. But Jamie was about to surprise us once again.

It turns out that when Jamie received the funds for the drying structure, he decided to donate it to Children’s daycare (Hogar Comunitario in Los Guido community, Desamparados, San Jose) for kids who have been abused or mistreated.

[caption id="attachment_933" align="alignnone" width="512" caption="Jamie and his wife Maribel handing out gifts. Christmas came early for these kids."][/caption]

It’s this attitude of taking care of those around you, paying forward, investing in local communities and generosity that continues to surprise and inspire us.

Keep up the great work Jamie and Maribel!