coffee

As The Chaff Settles: TEDCoffee Recap

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42 volunteer baristas, 5 WCE staffers. Mission #TEDCoffee: complete…for 2014 at least! It has been almost a week since our team of baristas rounded out a wonderfully eventful 5 days of coffee & tea service at TED2014 in Vancouver and at TEDActive in Whistler. Our team, with the help of 26 incredible partners, and the guidance and wisdom of the BGA, smoothly and professionally operated 7 full service bars and 11 self-serve stations in two cities. We had the pleasure of utilizing 5 different brewing methods while serving coffees that highlighted local roasters from Canada, as well as coffee that was shipped across oceans from New Zealand and Taiwan. On top of that, we helped facilitate the debut of TOM’s new roasting venture. All the while bringing together a community of coffee professionals from across North America to work side-by-side towards a common goal. Not too shabby!

Matthew Williams of WCE remarked, “The success of coffee service at TED was the result of an extraordinary group of baristas. They were adept at handling the unique challenges of operating a temporary bar in a busy venue. They made awesome tasting coffee and they engaged with TEDsters in a way that everyone should be proud of. Hats off to a great team!”

Our dedicated group of volunteers really pulled through, working passionately to spread the word (and taste) of specialty coffee to the eclectic group of literati roaming the Vancouver Convention Center and the Fairmont Chateau Whistler. This made for a very unique experience as Jonathan Paul Doerr of Portola Coffee Lab in Costa Mesa pointed out.

“You are at this incredible event working with the best of your peers in the industry, serving amazing coffees and having an amazing time; but yes, that was a Nobel Prize winner you just served a soy cappuccino. And yes, your heart stopped while you were pouring it. Coffee at TED2014 is the most fun and enjoyable coffee experience I’ve been a part of. A constant flow of energy pulses through the space you are in. It is infectious. There is, however, a heaviness in some of the topics that are being discussed. You are a buffer though, and you stand in the decided safety between the trenches. The openness and free flow of ideas can only take place when there is a gap between things. At TED we facilitate that gap, but also provide the joy and intensity that permeates the conference.”

We are extremely excited to announce that WCE will be managing #TEDCoffee again next year, so please check back for updates on TED2015 and TEDActive. And check out some choice pics at our Photo Shelter Gallery!

WCE would like to send out a humongous “Thank You!” again to everyone who helped make #TEDCoffee 2014 so great!

Behind the Scenes @ TEDCoffee 2014

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While they may not have been in-your-face at the stations, there were many things happening on back bars, behind closed doors, in hidden hallways and under counters in Vancouver and in Whistler that involved people and partners whose contributions to TEDCoffee were invaluable. All day, every day at TED, our rotating “BREW CREW” of 3 to 4 baristas could be found weighing, grinding, brewing, filtering, re-stocking, and running around to the 9 self-serve stations to ensure that all of the coffee and tea were available and at top quality for the over 2000 speakers, attendees, and staff at TED and TEDActive. Without the help of Bunn-O-Matic, Stealth Coffee Systems, Curtis, FLO-JET,  Global Customized Water, Visions Espresso, and Reg Barber, our coffee/tea service would’ve been a real drag.

Both BUNN & Stealth Coffee Systems provided us with grinders for batch brewing, including the MAHLKÖNIG EK 43, an industry sweetheart that allowed us to consistently and swiftly grind coffee for the masses. BUNN even provided us with their very own Rusty Angell, whose technical savvy and always-sunny disposition made everyone’s TEDCoffee experience even brighter 🙂

The wonderful Mr. Rusty Angell, of Bunn-O-Matic

FLOJET, as well as David Beeman and Stacy Ingram from Global Customized Water, allowed us to have exquisitely clean, filtered water constantly pumping to our espresso machines, hot water towers, and brewers,  which were provided by Curtis. Not to mention all the small wares from Visions Espresso and Reg Barber that our baristas used to tamp, steam, rinse, and serve the most delicious coffee possible at TED. Thank you again for enabling us to make the coffee and tea service at TED and TEDActive a huge success!

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Self-service set-up @ TED Vancouver

Holdin’ Down the Chateau at TEDActive!

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Check out some of the amazingness that has been captured of our stellar barista team at TEDActive in Whistler!

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Credit: Marla Aufmuth

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Credit: Sarah Nickerson

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Credit: Sarah Nickerson

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Credit: Sarah Nickerson

 

Special shout-out goes out to Detpak for providing these lovely cups! The Whistler crowd wouldn’t have been nearly as “Active” without portable caffeine 🙂

Canadian Barista Champ Jeremy Ho @ TEDCoffee Vancouver!

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We are fortunate enough to have 2012 Canadian Barista Champion Jeremy Ho of Phil & Sebastian Coffee as part of our team at TED this year! Mere minutes ago, Mr. Ho held a demo at the Phil & Sebastian Bar demonstrating how different roasts affect the same coffee. The Gedeb from the Kokanna washing station in Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia grows between 1700 and 1900 meters, was roasted 3 different ways and prepared as an espresso, an Aeropress, and also as a Chemex. Sweet sassy molassy!

Journey to TEDcoffee2014: Where we came from and where we are going

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Photo Credit: Brian W. Jones

Peter Giuliano, Director of Symposium for SCAA:

The TED conference has been one of the most captivating phenomena of the past quarter century: allowing amazing people to give voice to new ideas. And, since the beginning, TED has understood the connection between great ideas and great coffee. Companies like Thanksgiving coffee and Intelligentsia coffee helped create delicious coffee services at TED conferences in Monterey and Long Beach. A few years ago, however, a new approach emerged: a collaboration of extraordinary coffee professionals gathered together expressly for the purpose of creating a unique coffee service for TED. It was designed to be an expression of the best that coffee could offer, an extension of the TED philosophy of “ideas worth sharing”. The project came to be called Coffee Common, and was an expression of the coffee community- dedicated to celebrating excellence and goodness in coffee. Talented volunteer baristas, in collaboration with roasting and equipment companies, created a unique coffee service, focusing on delivering transcendent coffee experiences in the coffee setting. Perfectly prepared coffee, presented by engaging professionals. The idea became to deliver a tiny, 45 second equivalent of a TED talk in coffee form. For two years, Coffee Common curated the coffee service, and in 2013 the torch was passed to the SCAA’s Barista Guild and Roasters Guild. Once again, the bar was raised- introducing a new approach to coffee sourcing and including a message about the importance of culinary professionalism and collaboration in coffee.

This year, with TED’s relocation to Vancouver, we are once again planning a paradigm-busting coffee service for the conference. Extraordinary representatives of the Barista Guild will craft coffees at a network of coffee bars, featuring special coffees from Canada and other exciting coffees from around the world. We continue to be committed to collaboration, exploration, and excellence, and to spreading the word of specialty coffee among the unique TED audience.