It’s the final day of registration for the absolutely free Barista Nation event in Portland, held next Tuesday, April 17th. Organized by Anastasia Chovan, Barista Nation “provides a grass roots forum for coffee professionals to discover and develop the necessary coffee and business skills to succeed in the specialty coffee market.” With the help from sponsors, Barista Nation is able to make this event completely free for the working barista.
We were able to attend the last Barista Nation event in San Francisco, just a few months ago. We sat in on a roundtable ย talk from Fair Trade USA, learned about the future of batch brewing with Brant Curtis of Curtis Brewing, pulled shots on the Unic espresso machines with Southwest Regional barista competitors Devorah Freudiger and Kevin “Tex” Bohlin, watchedย a jaw-dropping presentation from SF’s Boor Bridges Architecture (the brilliants design minds who helped Eileen Hassi build-out Ritual, Jeremy Tooker build-out Four Barrel and Justin and Jarod Morrison build-out Sight Glass), and walked away with our bellies full of complimentaryย Starter Bakery kouign amanns and a bag full of sweet schwag. It was quite a day.
Barista Nation will next be taking their unique programming to Tokyo later this year. For the event in Portland, they teamed up with Italian giant Illy to put together an impressive line-up of talks, workshops and discussion. From their website:
Master the science of milk and turn your latte into a piece of art with Sauro Dall Aglio Italian Barista Champion and Giorgio Milos Italian Master Barista from illy caffรฉ in the development 2 session. Followed by a special round table discussion with our two special Italian baristi in the afternoon discovery session passion without borders. Register at baristanation@gmail.com.
It’s not too late! Register now. Now!!!
