Stephen Vick, the Procurement and Quality Manager for African Coffee Roasters based in Nairobi, Kenya who also works with a San Francisco-based team on a green coffee website called Beanstock, will be heading to Dublin, Ireland to judge the 2016 World AeroPress Championships.
Held on Thursday, 23rd of June, the 2016 World AeroPress Championship will see competitors from 52 countries attempt to brew the tastiest cup of coffee possible, made using the Aerobie AeroPress.
Since the inaugural event held in Oslo 2008, the format of the competition, designed around three doctrines: fast, fun and light-hearted; remains one of the most enjoyable contests in the coffee world.
This year, the World Championship will be held at the hip live music venue, Wigwam in Dublin, which also features a cool café and bar – a poignant venue since National Championships from all over the world have evolved into lively and spirited affairs with an impressive audience turnout, and are usually accompanied by a DJ, street food vendors and, in a lot of regions, free beer for spectators (and competitors).
HOW IT WORKS
The competition is a multiple round, elimination tournament and will see competitors having eight minutes to brew the best cup of AeroPress coffee that they can.
In each round, three competitors brew simultaneously and their drinks are presented in identical vessels to a panel of three judges. Each competitor must present a minimum of 200ml of brewed coffee with only ground coffee and water as the only ingredients allowed to be used.
The judges then blindly evaluate each of the drinks and make their own private assessment as to which is the best, definable as “the cup I would most like to drink all of”.
Judging by taste alone, the panel of three judges must simultaneously point toward their preferred cup out of the three presented in each round, with the winner proceeding to the next round while the other two entrants are knocked out.