As The Chaff Settles: TEDCoffee Recap

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!

Potent Quotables: Alex Negranza on his TEDCoffee Experience

This is the second year in a row that Alex Negranza of Seattle, Washington, has volunteered his skills and talents to the coffee program at TED; both in 2013 at TEDActive in Palm Springs, and again this year at TEDActive in Whistler. Mr. Negranza put together a wonderful video for us that highlights the coffee/tea service in Whistler this year, and also explained what inspired him to participate in the TEDCoffee experience:

“Despite our communities and cultures, taste preferences and training, there’s a beautiful thing in coffee that unites us all: it’s the drive to serve someone a coffee that changes the way they approach their morning ritual. Almost a decade ago, I was entrapped by the idea that if I couldn’t understand something as simple as a cup of coffee, how was I going to take on the rest of my day…. and down the rabbit hole I went. I spent years reading, training, traveling, and countless sleepless nights of over-caffeination trying to wrap my head around a way to serve up that “A-Ha!” moment to a consumer. That moment that the light bulb clicks on…that moment when we share something that transcends the morning ritual…that moment when we, as baristas, turn into culinary alchemists and share black gold to a palate that’s only known charcoal and ash: that moment, created by depth and breadth of flavor and a story of scores of people united by a cause across handfuls of countries. Sure, it is something as simple as a cup of coffee- but nothing is ever as simple as it seems. And everything starts as an idea.

I’ve said it once, typed it three or four times and I’ll probably tweet it again- being a part of TED is one of the most inspirational and empowering things someone could ever experience. It’s hard to say what the coolest thing at TED was… Technology? Human Rights? Medical Advancements? Architecture? Biology? Aerospace? Edward Snowden Robot?! Selfies with aforementioned Snowden Robot?!?! Sure, those created unforgettable moments, but the coolest thing about TED for the coffee service was stripping down the baristas from our home machines, the comforts of our coffee bars, our favorite customers and coffees, removing the indie-branding and type-facing, letting us forget about our restored vintage knick-knacks and refurbished beech wood bars to remember that we share a common goal and story united across communities and cultures. We volunteered our minds and bodies for six long days. We served the idea of specialty coffee. We shared the goal of sustainability. We curated the service of that “A-Ha!” moment over and over again. And at the end of the day, we quietly bowed out, packed up, and went home to do it all over again.”

TEDCoffee 2014- Coffee Worth Sharing from World Coffee Events on Vimeo.

Holdin’ Down the Chateau at TEDActive!

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

Credit: Marla Aufmuth

Credit: Sarah Nickerson

Credit: Sarah Nickerson

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 🙂

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

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.