What a ride! Last week I got to compete in the inaugural Philippine Brewers Cup and was able to bag the first runner up trophy. Losing sucks, I’m not gonna lie. Especially by a margin of just a few points. You keep thinking about what you could have done differently. Rules that would have helped you (Section 15, Article A, ii 😅), they float in and out of your subconscious. This has been what my last day has been like.
The truth is that I have a veritable multitude of thoughts about what transpired. I’m sure you have similar thoughts too if you were there. However, for this post, I’m gonna take a moment to focus and be grateful for all the positive takeaways form this experience.
First, I’d like to congratulate Jaycee on her win. Jaycee, I saw your presentation and you really knocked it out of the park. I’m happy to lose to you because you deserved it! You’ve poured me many coffees going all the way back to your days at Coffee Empire and you keep getting better and better. I wish you all the best in Dubai.
As for my own experience, it was my great pleasure to present some of the work we’ve been able to develop in Kendo Creative, currently the main test studio for PURP Coffee (the coffee selection arm of Honeycomb), in order push the limit of what can be done with black coffee. It’s been amazing to put these ideas out there and experience the validation of great results.
Here are some of those techniques we carried into the competition, in case you want to experiment with them yourselves.
P/M Multi-Dosing is an efficiency system we use where I use a Blackjack card-counting technique to do math on-the-fly and never tare the scales. In a nutshell, you sight read the scale and assign relative plus (P) or minus (M) number to each brew relative to its position on the table. This frees up precious seconds and also your hands to do more steps instead of pushing buttons, steps such as the ones in immer-colation.
Totally consistent “very good” balance and body scores, plus official recorded TDS results show that this system can has legs. TDS readings on the compulsory round were even the tightest I’d ever seen in all the tests I’ve done, with only 0.04 variation across the 3 cups. Thank you to the Kalita Wave, and thank you P/M Multi-Dosing!
50-50 boulders and fines. So much emphasis is upon uniform distribution of particle size. But it’s simply not realistic that there will be no fines. So my approach is to embrace fines and give them a bigger stage in the flavor profile. I think many brewers would be shocked to see how fine I grind my coffee. It’s almost espresso fine in order to get more surface area in contact with the water.
Immer-colation itself! Of course, this is the star of all my techniques. The brew method is all about “listening” to your coffee so that you can break apart the brew process to extract flavors more aggressively. Then, not letting the coffee go bitter by managing temperature drops and turbulence across multiple vessels. I feel like we’ve really just scratched the surface of what can be done here. For those who want to try it, create a slurry with about 40 of your total brew water in a double wall vessel. Once you’ve reached peak extraction of desired flavors (experiment to discover this), pour the water into a dripper. Once all the coffee has settled, pour the remaining 60% in a second pulse of water through the dripper to increase the intensity of your flavors.
More than anything, I believe that this is a home-grown, Philippine technique that we can call our own. I developed it over 2 years without anyone to copy and it is — to the best of my knowledge — unique.
I recently got into a discussion with a cafe owner over what a “short black” is. He was telling me that his barista insisted that this coffee be served a certain way because he was following “the Australian way.” This really got me thinking, why do we have to follow an Australian way, or an Italian way, or an American way? Why can’t we come up with our own way? A Philippine way!
Let’s develop our voice as a nation and push for the best coffee possible using homegrown ideas, techniques, brewing devices, service styles, whatever!
And this means challenging the conventions on an ongoing basis. I commend Gelo of Habitual for also pushing the envelope with his aged coffee routine in the Barista Championship category. It’s this kind of attitude we need.
Again, it’s incredible to get this kind of validation. I joined this competition as a learning experience and that’s exactly what happened. I learned a lot and am excited to do it again.
And now, some special thank yous…
To Sly, who roasted our finals coffee, a beautiful Finca Nuguo Geisha. It came in at the last moment when the original coffee had just moved too far from the Roast Date. But more than just on the day itself, your friendship and generosity since day one in this journey is something I will always be grateful for.
To Kiddo and my family at El Union Coffee. Your advice on proper judging protocol and how to dial in the presentation to be meaningful really gave me courage to break norms and be my best. Your roasts of Panama’s Finca Hartman caturra is what continues to keep that origin so alive for me.
To my instant survey group of blind taste testers on competition morning. You know who you are. The 2 Q graders, 4 roasters, 2 competition judges from previous years, and 2 members of the Philippines WBC team who participated in my impromptu blind taste test on competition morning to help me determine which coffee to go with. FYI guys, you were unanimous in your selection! I’m honored to be able to call you friends, and sharing this community with you makes me a better brewer every year.
To Ria Lingad, the New Zealand Brewers Cup Champion. For helping me dial in the science on this kind of brewing during our workshop, specifically in how blooming the coffee is unnecessary in immersion methods. I was moved that you would send me that handwritten page from your notebook showing the math of extraction yeild and TDS as calculated for the score sheet.
Thank you to Jose Gallardo. For listening to nature and tree drying this incredible natural geisha, picking it at the end of season.
To Hacienda La Esmeralda and Everyday Coffee Roasters. With your coffees, I was able to milk all “very good” and even “excellent” cup scores from the judges when that Catuai was in its prime.
To all of our PURP Coffee clients who trust us to select the right coffees for them. Without their patronage, none of this would be possible.
To Jay Caragay from WCE and his team of judges, who righted the ship organisationally when everything went into a tailspin. Excellent on-the-fly execution!
To my parents and parents-in-law, who have been taking care of my daughters for 5 days straight so that we can make this run for the title.
To Ynna, who tasted my coffees over and over in practice, and took days off from her regular life to support and caddy for the team.
To Dave and Jose, for letting me use your kettle in a pinch!
To Rafa, my regular customer and friend who took all the photos in this post. Follow his 4X4 brewing and surfing adventures on Instagram at @overlandoversea
To Nica, my love, inspiration, and partner. Thank you for excellent caddy work on finals day, specifically. You are the sweetest of all tasting notes.
In conclusion
Let’s make more coffee and keep pushing the envelope. Let’s make our own voice heard in the coffee world. Be up to date on what everyone else in the world is doing, but let’s take risks and not be afraid to fail or be wrong. As my master once said, “the greatest teacher, failure is.”
So for now, I shall console myself with some Farmacy ice cream and go back to the lab. I also go back to planning our new 1200 sqm creative labs opening in a few more months. We’re gonna have a killer coffee program there, I promise you.
See you at the brew bar!
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