The Barista League 2026, BTS.

Good morning everyone, today friends are getting married so we're in nyc! Yesterday I worked a 12hr shift, the day before we were in Atlanta for The Barista League North America! This coming Friday I'm judging a comp too! It's been a bit of a whirlwind week, I'm trying not to get sick but travel always does me in. Anywho, now that we're through the comp I'd like to start writing this so I can talk about how it came to be and our experience in it!

COFFEE COMPETITIONS?

Despite my 15 years or so in coffee world and sometimes even being considered notable, I've never done a USBC or us barista competition hosted by the sca or specialty coffee association. I was part of a small preliminary “brewers cup” in 2020 where I think I won second and then received some invitations to train for competing in the usbc, but at the time it would've cost me at least $2-3k which was out of budget.

That's kind of the whole thing about competing, it's expensive to get started for baristas who are often making minimum wage, and even if they have the cash, it can be a struggle to get time off or find a supportive boss. So those who do it are usually working for bigger coffee companies that have a mutual interest in clout, and unless you're in a big city with a strong coffee scene those companies may not exist. When you talk to other baristas about it you get the same story, and eventually something like "f*** those rich ***holes anyway."

And yea okay so what, who cares? Something I used to say as a baby-barista was "well if I'm going to spend all my time doing this, I may as well get good at it." As you get good, so to speak, you may seek recognition; Or you may just want some context for whether or not you're really all that great. Early on there wasn't much coffee content online either, so talking in person with other baristas was how you really learned things. Even then many excellent baristas were radically anti-social, so a serious competition was how they expressed their skill or opinions.

Eventually I took a break. Then I opened my own shop. My priorities shifted. Now my "getting good" is very broad and team/space/community oriented, it's way harder to be honest haha, which is more fulfilling! You know, boring in to our own niche.

That said, I still encourage my team to participate in competitions. We're a busy shop where everyone does everything so we have the skillset, and it's a good fun way to grow. Being one small shop with no beans to sell online, We haven't pursued the bigger more expensive comps because even now they're out of budget, but we do go to a lot of local Florida based comps when possible.

THE BARISTA LEAGUE (TBL) WAS DIFFERENT!

It was one of these big comps, but it was free to enter, beans were provided (yes the barista often buys those for big comps), we could train ourselves, and it was a days drive away; Most importantly, this year it was team oriented and with an emphasis on authentic service environments. I felt like we could crush this one since we have a strong team with great service. So we filmed an audition tape.

It was Bailey and I, who each had the most experience on the team in specialty coffee world and in local competitions. We were both in a unique spot in that we had invested a lot in to coffee, but really had nothing to lose. I owned a shop that wasn’t selling anything outside of Florida, and Bailey expressed no interest in traveling to work in coffee. We wanted to do this not for greater career clout, but because we felt we had something to add to the conversation in terms of coffee culture in north America, and that we could really barrel in to this very serious scene with a big smile and loud voice. Showing people what southern hospitality looked like in this little secluded stage setting.

Somehow we weren’t nervous either, that’s the question we kept getting, even as the size of this thing dawned on us. It felt like no matter what happened, we could control a room and perform under pressure. I felt like we had the silliest audition tape, which is exactly how we like it. We got a nice reply email before we were let in that they liked our tape, and then we got approved a few weeks later.

SO WE GOT IN, WHAT’S NEXT?

We had a little zoom meeting to discuss the whole thing in June, then the TBL team took a month off, and so did we. Bailey focused on school and I was running some latte art / brew classes to raise money in the slow season. Then once we were a month out, we submitted our playlist and coffee picks from counter culture which were the real deadlines, and got to work.

We were sent a bunch of samples so we could prepare, pretty much every syrup (full bottle -_-) from 1883, a bunch of each coffee choice from counter culture, syrups from hollander, flavor powders from pixel dust. Which we tried a little bit of a lot of, but honestly it was excessive. We ended up giving most of it away.

We got a chemex pour over device and some ai art stickers. We made a couple brews in this and were reminded that this big silly thing is fun but better for home use in our case. We got a handful of mini, cold brew cupping devices from toddy, and a full sized (2qt) cold-brewer from toddy. Which we did some samples in and tasted.

We wrote up our menu, and submitted that for review too. (pictures attached)

We thought building on our existing theme would be the best way to go, so we made the whole menu florida themed and inspired by a series of small towns. We had a little blurb about each on back that told some history but also justified our use of them. We tried to keep it all light and bright.

Our drip and espresso were big long and light easy drinkin’. The drip came with a sliced lime rim which gave it the character of a more citrusy coffee with a lighter body that we wanted, and we also brewed at a lower temp which helped make it ready to drink right away and lighten that body further. The espresso would be the counter culture staple, and we’d just focus on a good dial with new equipment.

The Coco beach, our non-dairy choice was like our shop menu’s coco shake with local honey and heavy fatty coconut, but with flaky salt since it was beach themed. super tropical!

The weekiwachee was our mocktail, and entirely a vegan bloody mary with homemade pickles and a local pepper. That one took a litttle fermentation and produce sourcing which was a specialty of ours.

The Treasure beach was our dessert. Since our mystery ingredient was pumpkin spice, we made a pumpkin cheesecake latte essentially. We got a local chocolatier to make toffee bits to serve as a snack and an ingredient which was another sourcing highlight.

We practiced our drinks individually but never as a single performance, which if we had made the time definitely would’ve improved our show. We went in with the mindset of learning a lot on the fly and Elias making drinks while Bailey talked, in the style of our front'/bar dynamic at the cafe. We brought along a few of our shop’s “girlypop zines” we’d made earlier in the year and bookmarked some relevant terminology as fun easter eggs to give to the judges as gifts.

GETTING THERE, PAYING FOR IT.

Everything started early, and we’d be getting in late. Originally we planned for two nights to cover training day and the comp, but quickly we realized we’d need three to get enough sleep. Even then it was like three straight dawn to dusk days of practice and shooting once we arrived. Occasionally we’d pop out for a nap or some food, scarfing it down and looking for more parking, but we had to be back to hit our marks in the green room, on stage or in an interview.

We’d asked our roaster and local coffee collective “Florida coffee culture” to cover the airbnb. They agreed. Then we added more rooms for the whole staff, another night, and they still each came through with half. As a shop I paid Bailey to be there, Beeta to shoot content, Amanda our mom to drive, Sebastian to draw a shirt design to sell some pre orders, and all the other food / gas.

So our costs at a base line were around $500 IIRC. But we closed the shop, so $2k? Then, we had to scramble for extra prep. $2200? Parking ticket. $2400? OUCH! I did some private classes, we booked a wedding coffee cart. I ate into personal savings. Then we scraped by and made it out there. And had a great time. Still haven’t paid that ticket, they added $40 for me trying to dispute it. -_-

SPONSOR CONFLICTS / SOLUTIONS.

At one point during the comp, Steve who runs the event globally and was lovely, did give me a slightly agitated speech about sponsors as I tried to clarify over and over what I could and couldn’t use; Eventually he said, “listen dude, this event is free because of our sponsors, so you’ve gotta use their stuff.”

Fair enough, But! This caused some chaos and miscommunication for us and presumably everyone.

The main thing was, we didn’t know until the day before, that we’d be using coffee provided by toddy for cold brewing; We’d been practicing with counter culture. Toddy were super supportive in letting us taste everything and giving some guidance, so I think everyone felt better by the event.

We’d been sent some oat milk by Hollander, and were told that one round was a non dairy drink. We thought they were that sponsor, but we made our own coconut milk anyway. We got to the event, and actually califia was the sponsor, so we couldn’t use our own milk. We ended up using an unlabeled trader joes coconut cream can and pouring a little in to their base coconut milk along with a little vanilla paste and that worked!

We tried our best to bring all our own small wares, and that was a good idea mostly. One thing we brought was our barista hustle autocomb, then we found out the day-of that a rep from mhw3 bomber had driven overnight from miami to bring us their WDT tool, and it was optional!!! On the one hand I had emailed barista hustle and told them we’d be repping on stage, but I thought it’d be a dick move to not use the bomber.

We had 90 minutes of practice time on the espresso machine and other equipment in person; This stuff was top of the line and these were event sponsors. So we were there to show off their tech. At least an hour of our time was just learning to use it and pulling a good shot. This stuff had a pre infusion, pressure profiling, touchy scales, post infusion, a temp check, and it was all digital with it’s own language. We figured it out, but we we’re coming from a la marzocco linea. Without sani buckets and in a new space. it was messy and alien, it wasn’t comfortable.

Then we spent the other 30 tasting shots and laying stuff out, which told us we had to run to joes and walmart and wherever else for last minute purchases.

HOW DID THE ACTUAL EVENT GO?

Well the whole staff made it up and we headed to the event. There was a room where all the coffee brands gave stuff out and let us try their most fun coffee, stuff like the black&white gummy sharks summer blend, or the perc bubblegum co-ferment. The main room had the core sponsors like counter culture making lattes or pixel dust giving out donuts. The night before there was a banana milk latte art comp at the counter culture lab we went to, and we saw some of those friends again. We ran around, drank coffee, said hi, but like most comps as it got further in more people cleared out, so by the time the dust settled it was a chill room.

In the initial chaos we hit our marks and gave a big show. Everyone said we did great! For us it was all a blur. 36 hours straight of work for a 10 minute performance. They forgot to play our music playlist which was supposed to include a coordinated dance scene; Otherwise, We had a lot of fun and so did the judges, mostly. One ate our spicy pepper during the post interview and I ran her some water in fear haha. One glared at us and his little piece of candy as if it was deadly serious. But we brushed it off and kicked *ss. We went over time because Bailey missed the warning, and I threw up my hand for a high five which acted as our secret sign. Then we scurried off.

Mainly It was really rewarding getting to see the other competitors put on a show too. We’d talked to them and made friends, but kind of held our cards close to our chest until it was time to show off. So seeing them light up excitedly as they got to talk to the judges and serve drinks made me really happy, as that’s what I was looking forward to the whole trip.

We had our own critical feelings about the other performances, some were hard to hear, others were much more serious in body language and tone than they were verbally expressing. We wanted to be fun loose and authentic, but realized a rehearsed performance where we only made what was crucial would’ve made more sense for the format. We wanted to treat the judges as first time guest in our cafe who we’d never met, but saw others giving personal researched-gifts to the judges in the style of Danny Meyer or eleven madison park. While we didn’t love that approach, clearly it resonated with the judges. We wanted our dialogue to be organic and communicate with the judges, but we saw others giving a rehearsed speech where the judges didn’t interact and that landed well. Oh well, time for bed.

THE NEXT MORNING

we got our score sheets back and Bailey and I both had our eyes snap open to read over them. It seemed like we’d done pretty well, but lost a lot of points for going over time. We realized we’d forgotten to dilute our cold brew concentrate and maybe ruined the bloody mary. We’d realized we’d gone too safe on our espresso and could’ve expressed our ability to dial in fun espressos better. We had a comment like “very entry level espresso” and i was like AAHHHH. The candy glaring man really did hate us, but everyone else had a pretty good time. So, we felt great.

We went to have breakfast/coffee at Academy Coffee the next morning and were served by Sun who’d won the night before. Very cool to say hi post comp and nice to decompress. We went to perc down the street to redeem our free coffee cards, then up to Valor our OG tetherball roaster in Dunwoody. Finally, all the way back home. Long day, long blog. We learned so much, I feel like we could absolutely do it again, but that’s an idea for next year

-Elias : )