Massive congratulations go out to Dan Fellows, the UK Barista Champion and our Head of Wholesale, for his incredible performance at the World Barista Championship. Dan now ranks among the top ten baristas in the world following his debut world competition.
Pic credit to the brilliant Sprudge
For anyone who’s been spared us shouting about it, Dan’s been in Dublin representing the UK in the World Barista Championship (WBC). Within the speciality coffee industry the WBC is about as big as it gets. So to be representing the UK at this prestigious competition is just something else.
Within each heat of the WBC the baristas perform a 15 minute routine – carefully choreographed to music – in which they prepare judges three courses. The courses comprise an espresso, a milk based drink and a signature drink. Dan brewed Nekisse Limited Batch E17 produced in Sidama, Ethiopia by the highly acclaimed Ninety Plus Coffee. Dan made the decision to triple screen his competition coffee selecting only uniform beans, furthering the precision processing that the beans had undergone, for extreme clarity of flavour. For his espresso course Dan dosed 21 grams in to 42 grams out to “…deliver the most amazing tactile… like pineapple juice…” His flavour notes were of passion fruit, red plum, black cherry and 69% Peruvian dark chocolate. His milk beverage offered a milk chocolate truffle flavour and plums in cream.
For his signature drink Dan delivered “The complete Nekisse experience”. This comprised chilled Nekisse with freeze-dried strawberries, fresh passion fruit, Peruvian cacao nibs, and pineapple juice with salted molasses syrup and matcha coconut cream. As well as contrasting and complementing the Nekisse flavour profile, the combination of these precisely selected flavour additions cleverly played to the five taste sensations: sweet, sour, bitter, salt and umami. The introduction of a billowing tropical infusion aroma consisting of dried pineapple, dried coconut and passion fruit tea enhanced this incredible sensory experience and added theatre to the routine.
The initial WBC heat took place on Thursday where Dan battled it out against the champions from 61 other nations.
“Cool, collected and in control.” @SprudgeLive
As in the national championship, Dan’s routine showed precision and supreme synchronisation. His impressive performance saw him sailing through to the semi-finals on Friday. The semi-finals then saw 12 baristas compete at an unparalleled professional level.
Dan achieved an incredible 9th place in the championship, with his technical skill scores being nothing less than astounding. Dan also won this year’s inaugural WBC Team Competition (each of the 61 competitors were placed in one of 10 teams balanced based on their countries’ historical performance ranking and their individual scores were combined and averaged to arrive at a team score). Dan’s ‘Team Tamper’ received the highest group score, winning them a trip to Seoul, South Korea for the 2016 Café Show.
Pic credit to Jake Olson
We couldn’t be more proud of Dan and his achievement.
Our congratulations to Berg Wu from Taiwan for an incredible WBC win.
Big thanks to Sprudge and @coffeetographer for the ever brilliant live coverage at the event and, of course, to World Coffee Events. #WBCDublin #Fellowsrepresent
"@DanFellows1 as cool, composed and generous as ever. Smashing it." @jameskhansen
"Dan from Origin Coffee nailing it in the Semis of the #worldbaristachampionship #dublin" @cantontea
"Harry Potter could not conjure such a magnificent smoke..." @takkmcr
"that is some tutti frutti sig drink realness from @danfellows1" @SprudgeLive"
"Congratulations 2 finalists at ~WBCC2016 Canada, USA< Netherlands, France, Japan & Taiwan. Not 2 forget @DanFellows1 's awesomeness!"@C16H1809 [Dinuka Bandara]
Dan's special Nekisse Limited Batch E17 is now available at http://bit.ly/WBCCoffee
