Barista Nation – a wonderful series of events put on by our sponsors at Uniq Espresso and spearheaded by Anastasia Choven – are bringing their intensive-yet-playful style of coffee professional event to Vancouver, BC. The event is this Friday, June 22nd, and is hosted by Salt Spring Coffee. We had the opportunity to attend the Barista Nation San Francisco and Portland events, and were impressed by BN’s hands-on seminars, workshops, lectures (especially the architecture and batch brewing lectures we attending in San Francisco), give-aways, booze, and food. It’s an entirely free event, made possible by a handful of generous sponsors; if you’re near the Vancouver area on June 22, we strongly suggest you attend (again, it’s very free).
Vancouver’s program is all about Seasonality, with talks from Drew Billups of Atlas Coffee and Tom Vincent from the Texas Coffee School. The Vancouver event also offers of tour of the Swiss Water Decaf factory. Here’s the list of events (you can click to embiggen):
Anastasia & Co. also paired up with the folks behind Caffeine Crawl. For $25, get shuttled around town to at least 8 shops in BC. More from Caffeine Crawl:
Our first Caffeine Crawl event in Canada will be a weekend filled with events. Everything will kick off with a Barista Nation event on Friday, June 22nd. Barista Nation is a grass roots forum for coffee professionals to discover and develop the necessary coffee and business skills to succeed in the specialty coffee market. To learn more about Barista Nation and/or sign-up email baristanation@gmail.com, or call 866.295.8642.
PRECRAWL PARTY:
That same evening we’ll host a PreCrawl Party from 7:30p – 10:30p alongside Barista Nation at the Salt Spring Coffee roasting facility (also the location for Barista Nation). Everyone is invited to join us at the Party, whether industry, Caffeine Crawl ticket holder, or just a fan of coffee. Activities will include a raffle of prizes, including many beverage industry products and local gift certificates to the best spots in Vancouver, and a latte art contest.
We are finalizing the very last spots to complete the list of participating shops for Canada’s first ever Caffeine Crawl. There’s probably not a city more beautiful to spend a day visiting artisanal coffee and chocolate shops with fellow caffeine lovers.
This is the 5th-ever Caffeine Crawl; their first event was held last year in Kansas City, with subsequent events in Denver, Springfield (MO), and St. Louis. Upcoming CC sites include Boulder and round 2 for Kansas City – check out Caffeine Crawl online to learn more.