BREAKING: Nordic Barista Cup Canceled For 2014

Breaking today via Nordic Barista Cup’s official website comes news that the event’s organizers have “decided to close down NBC in its current form.” In a post titled “Dear Friends”, Chairman of the Nordic Barista Cup Association Jens Nørgaard reveals that the NBC will not be staged in 2014.

Nørgaard tells readers: “We are working hard on a new format for the event and will keep you posted.” Here’s the full text from Nordic Barista Cup:

Dear friends,

Thank you for supporting NBC over the last 10 years.

As our mission statement is fulfilled, we have decided to close down NBC in its current form.

There will not be a NBC event in 2014.

We are working on a new format for the event and will keep you posted.

Here on the NBC site you can find all information from earlier years. Knock your self out!

 

This is also where we’ll keep you posted on what will be the new NBC format to come.

Keep on sharing knowledge and remember to be together, learn together and act together.

It’s been great 10 years-thanks-TAK.

Yours sincerely

Jens Nørgaard

Chairman, Nordic Barista Cup Assn.

Nordic Barista Cup began in 2003 as a friendly team competition between the Nordic countries, but from the beginning, it also functioned as was one of the first serious gatherings of coffee professionals–started at a time when even the term “coffee professional” was still in its infancy. In its ten years of existence it brought together many of the modern specialty coffee movement’s biggest architects for in-depth lectures, inventive competitions, and riotous festivities.

With its exclusive selection of presenters and attendees and its rotating Nordic host country, this multi-day festival of serious coffee learning and play was one of the premier events on the specialty coffee calendar, and did much to help foster a spirit of innovation and excellence in the Nordic and global coffee communities. The social activities surrounding the NBC, it should be noted, were also reliably some of the best fodder for industry gossip and networking, a global event that drew repeat visitors year after year and forged friendships, business partnerships, and even a love connection or two. The event’s format presaged such events as the MAD food festival, and other culinary campouts.

Sprudge.com Assistant Editor Alex Bernson was a featured speaker at NBC’s 2013 event, part of a roster of lecturers that included thought leaders from across the coffee, food, wine, and agronomy disciplines. Other notable speakers have included Rene Redzepi, Oliver Strand, James Hoffmann, Doug Zell, Stephen Vick, Kyle Glanville, and many, many more. A full list of speakers is available via the archives at Nordic Barista Cup’s official website.

We’ve been covering the Nordic Barista Cup–both onsite and from afar, with love and perhaps a bit of gentle humor–since the very early days of Sprudge. Here’s a selection of our favorite NBC features over the years.