Well, another barista jam is in the books, and again, it was a great success. These things just keep getting more fun and more fun! This one brought some new faces and same old favorites! For the practical part of the jam we went over adjusting the grind in a hurry, and went through my "5 minute exercise," where I set the grinder to one side, and give you 5 minutes to get a good shot. The cool tool we talked about this week was the Pallo Coffeetool. This is a pretty popular and useful tool all shops should have.
Now, we move to the fun stuff. This was the first month of our "Iron Chef" style drink competition. The theme was "heat or spicy." The ingredients I gave them to work with were: Chipotle, Cayenne, Black Pepper, Chili and Curry Powder, Muscovado sugar, honey, and cinnamon. Plus, they could bring two of their own ingredients, things they thought would help them with the theme drink. We had three teams of two, with partners picked at random. The participants had 20 minutes to come up with a drink and put it before our judges. The winning team, "Barista Babes" won with a drink that included honey, chili pepper, white chocolate, espresso and steamed milk. All the drinks used the spices in different combinations, and the judges didn't "hate" any of the drinks. And that's good. This first time was a great success, and everyone was excited about this one, and are looking forward to next month's, so all you who plan to come to next month's, be prepared!
The remainder of the jam was spent on learning latte art, and learning the right technique for pouring rosettas and hearts. We had about 10 people there, and I would like to thank all that came out on a rainy night! I start tomorrow planning for next month's! Look here for the info coming soon!
The pics are posted here: http://gallery.mac.com/jasonandapril#100182&view=carouseljs&...
Local Coffee Afficianado and Green Coffee Coop head guy George Holt took these pics: http://s73.photobucket.com/albums/i235/ghholt/Barista%20Jam%205-18-...