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!

Behind the Scenes @ TEDCoffee 2014

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!

Self-service set-up @ TED Vancouver

Potent Quotables: Riley Paterson

Mr. Riley Paterson, of Visions Espresso in Seattle, on his first TEDCoffee experience:

I worked at 3 different stations, and was assigned to the brew shifts at all of them. I make pour overs all the time…I have a Chemex at home, so I’m used to that part, but the parameters for brewing for that volume of people was something I’d never experienced before. It was great because I got to use a Hario V60 at the first station, a Chemex at the second, an Aeropress at the third station, AND with three different coffees at that. It was also really cool to see what the coffee scene in Canada had to offer…that Matchstick Washed Ethiopia was DOPE, the Elysian Rwanda was awesome, and TOMS is off to a good start! I think it’s interesting that many of us have mentioned that a large part of our experience at TEDCoffee is the idea of drawing attention to the concept of equality, over just service per se, for example, how we are trying to change the perception of specialty coffee as a profession. We want to magnify the idea of hospitality, while still expressing the desire to establish expertise. I wonder what kind of experience the TED attendees are having after interacting with us…does it translate to them?