23rd March 2007
Cornish Café home to the best made coffee in Britain.
A Cornish café is officially home to the best espresso and cappuccino on sale in Great Britain.
Hugo Hercod, from Relish Food & Drink in Wadebridge, was the highest-placed working barista in the final of the UK Barista Championships.
His fourth place in the event, held at the International Food Exhibition at London’s Excel Centre on Sunday 18th March, confirms Hugo’s place among the elite of the UK’s espresso coffee specialists.
“The final was incredibly tense and nerve-wracking, but I was really pleased to get fourth place by doing exactly what I do at Relish every day,” said Hugo, who co-owns the Wadebridge café and fine food grocer with partner Sarah Townsend.
“None of the guys who finished above me serve coffees to paying customers on a daily basis - I do, and that is exactly how I wanted to make my coffee in the competition. I wanted to make the point that it is possible to do really well at the highest level using the same coffee beans, milk and other ingredients that I serve every day at Relish.”
Competitors in the UK Barista Championship each had 15 minutes to prepare four identical espressos, four cappuccinos and four speciality coffee drinks of their own design. They were scrutinised throughout by a panel of expert judges from the coffee industry, marking each competitor using a myriad of criteria.
Taste and texture are vitally important - to achieve top marks a coffee must have a harmonious balance of sweetness, acidity and bitterness, and should be full-bodied, round and smooth.
Points were also awarded for technical ability, presentation, professional dedication, attention to detail, and the general speed and efficiency with which the barista conducted their preparations.
Most competitors sourced unusual ‘single estate’ coffee beans and custom blends for their espressos and cappuccinos, with speciality drinks using coffee with some very exotic ingredients, including liquorice root, doughnuts, green tea and chilli sauce.
By contrast, Hugo used the very same ingredients he serves in Relish: Origin Coffee’s triple certified organic/Fair Trade/ Rainforest Alliance blend, using beans from Columbia, Honduras and Sumatra. His speciality drink - a hazelnut praline mocha - epitomised his approach to the competition.
“My speciality drink was conceived as something I could actually serve in the café, even on a busy day in the middle of summer,” said Hugo.
“Like everything at Relish it relied on very good ingredients, very well put together. I used real, homemade hazelnut praline, Origin’s Fair Trade cocoa, and organic Ugandan vanilla pods from Steenbergs. The end result was a drink that our customers would want to order: rich, short, with the luxurious texture of a smoothie, but not overpowering - almost like a pudding in a glass.”
The competition was won for the second consecutive year by James Hoffmann, a barista trainer for espresso machine manufacturer La Spaziale, who last year went on to achieve fifth place in the World Barista Championships.
Fewer than 60 points (from a possible total of 1012) separated the top four competitors, and it was generally considered that the 2007 final was the closest yet.
Steve Penk from the UKBC committee commented: “I honestly believe that the overall standard of the baristas in the final was amazing, and the standard of UK baristas has grown dramatically over the last two years.”
Hugo concurred: “It was great to see the increase in standard of the other baristas and know that every year there are coffee places springing up all over the country that make good coffee, because more and more people are getting to drink it, and becoming educated about what good coffee is - and more importantly, what’s not good.
“In the UK the concept of the barista is still a very niche thing, but in places where there is real coffee culture - like Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, and parts of the USA - customers are more discerning, and have a better understanding of what they should be able to expect when they order a cappuccino.
“Here, many of the best restaurants in the country are still guilty of putting people with five minutes of training onto their coffee machines and serving really bad coffee as the finale to a great meal, whilst charging eye-watering prices for it.
“I entered the UK Barista Championships because I wanted to make a point, because I believe what I do at Relish really matters. Having opened a café it would be hypocritical of me to go off to a competition and do everything differently. Getting the basics right is so important, which is why I spend 20 minutes every night scrubbing my coffee machine and cleaning my grinder, and which is why my customers get a well extracted cup of coffee which looks rich and tastes fantastic.”
Hugo’s fourth place marked a new high for South West competitors in the Championships, and built on the success of the 2006 event when three Westcountry baristas made the final. Cornish coffee suppliers Origin Coffee, who organised the South West qualifying heat, are hoping Hugo’s success will inspire up and coming baristas in the region to set their sights high.
“I am really chuffed with Hugo’s outstanding performance at the London finals,” said Tom Sobey from Origin Coffee. “His barista skills are second to none in the South West, and to be crowned fourth best barista in the UK in just his second year of competing is a real achievement.
“‘From an Origin point of view it is really satisfying that the fourth best barista in the country is a graduate of our coffee school in Falmouth. We have invested large sums of money in promoting the importance of the role the barista takes in a successful coffee shop. Too many times cafés and restaurants invest in expensive equipment to brew coffee and then settle for an hour’s training with ten staff. You would not open a restaurant and train a chef this way and we believe that it should be the same with coffee.”
ENDS
Notes For Editors
Relish Food & Drink opened in December 2006 following a £75,000 refurbishment of the Foundry Court premises, which includes a 40 seat café and courtyard, and separate grocer with a well-stocked delicatessen counter.
Relish Food & Drink aim to be as environmentally sensitive as possible. Wherever possible, the packaging used is bio-degradable/compostable and in some instances made from recycled products. Only environmentally friendly chemicals are used for cleaning, while heating and lighting systems are as energy efficient as possible.
The Relish logo, a fern, is a representation of latté art: the mark of a quality cup of coffee. Barista and co-proprietor Hugo Hercod, a finalist in the 2006, 2007 and 2008 UK Barista Championships, is among the top five coffee-makers in the country. He also competed as part of the UK team in the European Team Coffee Challenge, held in Moscow in October 2007. Says Hugo: “If you are drinking a cup of coffee which the barista has taken the trouble to make look nice, then you know it’s going to be good.”
Relish Food & Drink, Foundry Court, Wadebridge. Telephone: 01208 814214.
Winter opening hours (until Easter): 9.00am to 5.00pm, Monday to Saturday. Closed Sunday.
Media Contact - PR on behalf of Relish Food & Drink.
For more information and images contact: Jim Michell at Barefoot Media.
Telephone: +44 (0)1208 895089 Email: jim@barefootmedia.co.uk |
