Preliminary Style Heats for the United Kingdom Barista Championship 2020


 

We are continuing the format from last year’s competition, with preliminary style heats.  We want to continue to increased access and open up the competition, with all of its benefits, to a wider audience. With this in mind, we’re keeping the setup of the heats to closely follow the Preliminary events run as part of the United States Barista Championship (USBC). They will follow the relevant 2019 WBC Rules and Regulations and will be scored using elements from the 2019 WBC score sheets.

The format for each competitor presentation at the heats stage will be:

  • 20 Minutes Practice Time
  • 10 Minutes Stage Prep Time
  • 7 Minute Competition Time to present:
    • 2 Espressos
    • 2 Milk Beverages
  • 5 Minute Clean-Up time

There will be:

  • 2 Sensory Judges
  • 1 Technical Judge
  • 1 Head Judge

Competitors will be allowed to use a coffee of their own choice, however, our roasted and green coffee sponsors; Grumpy Mule and Olam Specialty Europe, will also supply various options which competitors can choose from and use.

Competitors must bring their own crockery and additional equipment. The machines being used at the heats are La Marzocco Strada 2 Groups. These will be fitted with 18g baskets and the machine temperature can be modified if requested before the start of the competition day. The provided grinders will be Victoria Arduino Mytho Two.  

The Semi-Finals and Finals rounds will then take on the standard WBC format.

We’ve continued with the prelim style heats for three key reasons: 

  1. Competitor Numbers. We’d like to address the number of entries and dropouts. We've seen declining entries the past three years and each year we then see up to a third of entries drop out at the last minute. The reasons for this are many, but we feel that if we can increase access to the event by dropping costs and having more local heats, we'll see these numbers reverse.
     
  2. Timing: We just don't have much time this year. Both UKBC and Brewers Cup need to be finished by the end of February/early March 2020 in order to give our champions adequate time to prepare for the World Coffee Championships in Melbourne in May. The heats that we have run for many years are costly both fiscally and in people hours. Whilst the former is not a major concern, due to the generosity of the championship sponsors, the latter really is. Trying to do a full heat program in that time would stretch our resources to the limit, and possibly beyond.
     
  3. Physical Resources: Most people involved in the SCA UK are volunteers, from the committee and judges to the numerous helpers we have at all the events. We depend on volunteers to enable the events to take place. With so many events taking place each year we struggle with volunteer fatigue and are finding it harder to adequately cover them all. Smaller events use fewer judges and volunteers meaning we make better use of our resources as the year goes on.

Whilst date and venues are still being confirmed, our aim is to hold 4 heats to cover as much of the country as is possible. 

We’re actively working with our sponsors to help any competitors without deep resources to source coffees that are needed to do well in the UKBC. We will also look to have opportunities to interact with the official machines and grinders, to this end we’ll be announcing details of UKBC lead up events soon.

We hope you’ll agree that although these changes aren’t a perfect solution, they represent a step forward in making the UKBC more accessible to the next wave of competitors, judges and volunteers.

As always your questions and suggestions are welcomed: info@scaukcoffee

The SCA UK Committee

 


Leave a comment


Please note, comments must be approved before they are published