Making Coffee at TED Global, Edinburgh 2012

I survived Edinburgh, making coffee for the TED Global 2012 delegates, and came back alive.

It was a pleasure to work with Ristretto and be behind the bar with some of their great baristas. The event was done with a number of partners, supplying brewing  equipment or ingredients, and it was great to work with materials supplied by: Alchemy coffee roasters, Mercanta coffee beans, La Marzocco, Hario and Marco Beverage Systems.

As you can see from the panoramas of the downstairs circular bar, set up of both upstairs and down included 4 La Marzocco FB80s, 4 Mazzer grinders, a Hario/aeropress brew bar, a Marco Filtro flask brewer and a Marco Eco boiler with Uber-Font and also a beautiful section dedicated to brewing the artisan teas of Waterloo Tea.

We got the chance to play with many coffees, a different single origin espresso and two different filter coffees on the brew bar every day. This gave us a real chance to chat with the talkers and attendees of TED, who were all a naturally curious bunch; as you would assume the audience of a TED event to be. They listened openly and asked questions, willing to take a chance on what was recommended to them.

Thanks to Ristretto for the opportunity and lastly Edinburgh’s Brewdog for fuelling us with so many delicious beers.

I’ll leave you with some photos of the week:

Jiri surrounded by steam

Latte Art

Dutch Latte Art Champion Esther displays how her unrivalled passion for coffee has taken over her life.

Waterloo Teas brewing station

Baristas are an unusual breed.

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All Photos by Craig Does Stuff.

Coffee at TED Edinburgh 2012

I am well chuffed to announce that I will be working with Ristretto to serve coffee to the attendees and speakers of TED Global 2012 in Edinburgh. 

If you are not aware of TED, it is an internationally renowned event that gets creatives, designers, intellectuals and pioneers of industry to give talks of their choice. It is a closed event, both an honour to speak at or even be able to attend. The talks can be found online on their site www.ted.com and you are bound to find something to inspire you there.

I have been asked, along with a dozen other baristas from across the country, to head up to Edinburgh and present great ethical coffee to these influential people as a way of showing them what is possible. I have been a huge fan of TED talks for years, so that with serving great coffee from a company like Ristretto, who I have worked freelance with on several occasions, in the beautiful city of Edinburgh is too good an opportunity to miss.

I will be photographing, videoing and blogging my journey and try to make the most of this great opportunity. I will be representing both my new employer The Plough in Harborne and Ristretto on this occasion and could not be more proud to do so.