For reasons I still don’t understand, I was asked to join four Q-grader’s in judging the very first (hopefully annual) Hacea Coffee Source Roasting Competition. It led to several very caffeinated days, plenty of time stuck on the 5 to marinate on the experience, and a few bouts with imposter syndrome.
Competition details: Each competitor received an equal quantity of three green coffees. They had to develop and roast a blend of them blind, meaning they didn’t know what the coffees were, where they were from, or how they were processed. Their only information came from what they could process by using their senses. The coffees arrived labeled A, B, and C.
As judges we knew the three coffees were Brazil Luzia (Coffee A), Colombia Nariño Aponte Village Honey (Coffee B), and Ethiopia West Arsi Nensebo G1 Washed (Coffee C). As competitors, they had to look, handle, smell, and depend on their skills as roasters to determine the best ratio to use of each coffee, what level to roast to, and create a flavor profile that enable us to taste each of the three coffees without one being left in the dust.
Day 1: Being intentional and mindful during a tasting may not sound hard, but try doing it for several hours a day with 75 coffees, all of which use the same beans. The scale was fairly daunting, and it was important to remember that we weren’t just doing this for funsies.
We had a responsibility for judging honestly and accurately, and then to provide feedback for the slew of roasters who used their own time, money, and effort roasting and developing the coffee. We had to start each judging session with a full passion bucket,* because it can get easy to be overwhelmed or get dismissive when so many coffees had overlapping flavor profiles.
I started showing symptoms of Imposter Syndrome before we even started cupping. I’m not a Q-grader. I’m just a guy. Jared Hales from Hacea assured me my contribution was valuable as a consumer taster. Having a varied judging pool ensured a broader range of feedback for the competitors. Plus, he could just throw out my scores if I went really off the rails.**
The scoring was intense. We used a custom 100-point scale that was broken down into 10 categories. Each coffee was graded based on whether each coffee was represented and their acidity, body, brightness, aftertaste, sweetness, and so on. For the record, the judges calibrated their tastes at the beginning of each session, and we were cupping blind too.
Time was of the essence. In addition to the number score, we provided brief feedback notes to each competitor. Even at only five minutes per coffee, we spent more than six hours in two sessions sampling coffee.
*Credit the Dan Patrick Show for the first known usage of “passion bucket.”
**He didn’t. My scores stayed in!
Day 2: We jumped into the second session faster. We had a system. The Hacea team brewed two coffees at a time on the space portal-esque Hirola V60 by Hario brewers. The judges ringed our cupping table, and we took turns dipping our spoons. When it was clear we’d all finished tasting a coffee, it was cleared and immediately replaced with the next round.
We were encouraged to keep our scoring to ourselves, but there was chatter about the overall quality of the coffees coming in. Almost all of them would have been acceptable, even good coffees, if served in a local cafe.
But there were obvious standouts. When one of them was on the table, I’d see the heads of other judges nod after the occasional slurp and then go back for more. It wasn’t technically table talk but rather an acknowledgment that despite the difficulty of the roasting challenge, it was possible to exceed expectations. The roasters that figured out how to best exemplify Coffee A, the Brazil beans, had a distinct scoring advantage.
At the end of the session I took a moment to chat with Emily Smith. She is the newest member of the Hacea team, and was the one spearheading the roasting competition. According to her it was designed to challenge roasters to engage with coffee without any preconceived notions about them, enabling them to develop new skills and learn to problem solve while roasting.
Day 3: There was a party! Why do anything if you aren’t going to celebrate, amirite?! Many of the competitors were in town for Coffee Fest LA, and they gathered at Regent Coffee in LA to celebrate.
The winner of the judges competition was Max Zelenevich, a home roaster from Philadelphia. Pretty amazing considering our competitors came from all over the world and included previous roasting champions. We’ve since learned that Max was on the verge of going pro. His company, Brain Wave Roasters, based in the suburbs of Philadelphia, officially launched just a month ago. You’ll learn a lot more about Max in the near future as he is a guest on an upcoming Season 12 episode of Coffee People.
The top five competitors from the judging sessions were entered into a People’s Choice competition at the event. Max won that one, too! Second place went to Swiss Water Decaffeinated’s Stacey Lynden (who will also appear in Season 12), and friend of R!WC Keri Elliot of Moms Roast Coffee. They went home with some awesome prizes, and I got to add “Judge” to my resume.
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Musings From The Judges Chair