Normally I spend my much deserved day off drinking PBR, eating cake, and smack talking. But this Saturday was the Latte Art competition, so I bagged some booze and biked up to the Works. Now, I’ve long since retired my tamping skills, ’cause I’m in the Tea dept now, but a few friends were competing, and like any true friend, I needed to heckle/cheer them through there slightly jitters and nervous game faces. The Training Lab was a clusterfist of hipster coffee geekism, random aficionados from different shops meeted and greeted all breathing the draft-less humid air that is Chicago summer. Pit stained and drinking beer, there was a commonality; the love of coffee preparation and aesthetics, the ability to decipher flavor complexities through fancy jargon, and the excitement within to throw down espresso style. Latte art! What?! And we all had tattoos.
In typical fashion, a slightly belligerent Mike Phillips herded the lemmings, random strays, and coffee orphans through the battle terms. Five bucks a head, winner takes all. La Marzocco triple basket double boiler with bottomless portafilters was about to be manhandled by a plethora of baristas. Contestants names would be pulled randomly, you could jiggle your wrist any way you pleased, but you only got one shot at it and one pour. Your creation, would be thrown into the limbo of flickr, awaiting judgment giveth by Marcus Boni, Liz Clayton and someone else I can’t remember. The holiness of your Latte soul would be condemned on a 1 to 10 scale, based on balance of symmetry, color infusion, and overall beauty. The results would then be available as instant as the internet can blink. First up, effin g-$ from mill park, and we cheer. We herded around him, breathing down his back like a micro managers on vendettas; taking pictures, whispering sweet nothings; which prolly didn’t aid in his smoothness, but was totally necessary nonetheless. Similar story for every contestant.
Now, I had a nice list going of the competitors and their respective shop, but its irrelevant now, seeing as I only really cared when my friends went up. Somewhere out there, in the internet awesomeness, exists a list of everyone who tried, prolly flickr. What I do recall is the nervous excitement of every participant, and somewhat disbelief in themselves, but ef that, everyone bucked up their skills and gave it what they had, some where intoxicated and others are lame. Definitely a lot of giggles, whiskey, and lamentations over smoke breaks. Outbursts of cheers echoed through the warehouse as each participant’s minion rooted them on. It’s great being surrounded by others like you, not having to explain what you “do” and why it matters, just good o’le nerdy pretentious fun. It goes without saying that some pours where rad and others god awful, but it was all in good humor, I think.
So who won? Well, my friends were kicked off the top ten, so I dunno, thank the High Life tall boys for my incompetence, ’cause, dude, I had a weekened night to fullfill, priorities first. Whatevs, it was prolly Stephen Morissey. Alas, if you want to call me out on inaccuracies, and prove my inability to function, then just do it, I can count on Todd Burbo for that. Because Adam asked me to write this and he knows how much I love dirty talking. So “hump the air, and call it a day.” Goodrich.
All photos from Sarah T at http://www.weeimagery.blogspot.com
Head over there to see the rest of the photos from the contest!
