Upcoming AASCA meeting

We are looking to hold the next AASCA meeting on Tuesday the 3^rd of November at the SA Coffee Academy at 6-30pm.

Items on this agenda will be as follows:

State co-ordinator

Roasters Guild and Cup of Excellence

SA and the 2011 WBC bid

2010 Nationals on the Gold Coast

If you're a member your attendance would be greatly appreciated and if your not but think you might be interested please feel free to contact Bill on 0407714560

AASCA update

On Friday Aasca (Australasian Specialty Coffee Association) held its annual general meeting and here are a few key points that were decided.

Ross Quail elected as the new President/Chairman.

Bill Comley as Vice President.

Tom Beaumont as Treasurer/Secretary.

Other regular members of the executive are Ian Callahan (that's me), Mark Barun and Bruno Maiolo.

In other news, Robert Forsythe was officially welcomed as a lifetime member, in order to give recognition to the fantastic work he has done for our industry over the many years.

Well done to all those appointed and who put up their hand to help strengthen the specialty coffee industry here and abroad. For those of you who haven't seen the new website or are interested in becoming a member please head over to www.aasca.com for more info.

This week's wrap up

Well I've decided to do a bit of a concise wrap at the end of every week, partly to act as a summary journal, and partly to let you all know what you missed out on if you couldn't make it through ;p

This week saw the first official week with 3 phase power at bar 9. This has meant that the lovely 40amps that the Synesso has been massively overloading our power grid with, is now taken care of, which leaves us with enough power coming to the site to fire up everything else we need without worry of tripping fuses and blowing out Etsa Boxes (yes, it happened - sorry ETSA).

This has meant a gradual introduction of some new menu items. We now have toasted panini being supplied by "queen st cafe", cakes and pastries by local pastry chef Shane Joppich and various other savoury items and house made chutneys etc by locally renowned chef, Scottie Butcher. We've finally got enough power to run a freezer which has meant the exciting introduction of Brazilian super food, Acai. For those of you who haven't tried it come in and ask for a free taster, we assure you, it's pretty damn amazing!

Also, if you have any suggestions for food, or anything you'd like to see on the menu, please let us know, as feedback on this side of the business has been the hardest to get out of people

This week has also seen a plethora of exciting coffee's coming through the doors. Rwandan Musasa, Tanzanian Blackburn Estate (both AA and AB), Bollivia San Juan 8 Estrellas, Kenya Gethumbwini (AA), Tembo and Gaikundo, Columbia Nos Larangas (which we loved so much that we decided to work it into our black blend), Guat and Brazil CoE (both getting on a bit but still quite tasty) two different Aricha's and two different Beloya's, some of Square Mile's summer espresso blend, and finally some Sumatran of which I'm not sure what region/farm but it was damn tasty as a syphon!

Nick Cho's thread on Coffeed.com regarding syphon brewing ratio's has had us really rethinking and experimenting with out syphon technique, however we still haven't made a decent brew with steep time's over a minute (still more tests to be done!). Ben Bicknell suggested a significantly different technique to what we usually employ which has been fun playing around with. Try 12.5g p/cup(120mls) roughly ground for a mokka (slightly coarser than espresso), added during the up draw with only one full stir. Steep for 45-50seconds and allow to draw down with again only one full stir. I'm not sure I'm fully sold on this technique but it does deliver a different but still enjoyable brew. If you do try it, let us know what you think.

Other than that we keep getting busier and busier so thank you to everyone who's come in and had a coffee, and even more so to everyone who's been spreading the word on our behalf, we really appreciate it.

Look forward to pulling you all some more exciting shots next week!

2010 South Australian Barista Competition

Some more news has come to light so here it is. Due to a conflict between sponsors expobar will no longer be supplying a prosumer to the winner, instead a Compak K3 (wbc) will be supplied to the winner. Two K10's will also be made available throughout the comp, one of which will be given to the winner of the Nationals and the other (I am told) will be auctioned off for charity.

There will be spots available for 15 competitors, and maybe a few 'reserve' entries which will be allowed to compete if there is enough time. However there are no guarantees so be sure to get your entry in ASAP if you plan on competing. 7 spots have already been filled by Cibo, and you can bet a few more will go to "C" coffee - on the run, which doesn't leave a great deal for everyone else so if you are interested, it's on a first come first serve basis so ask now!

An information night is being held at the Coffee Barun next Saturday (22nd August) from 5pm or feel free to contact Bill Comley on 0407 714 560 if you have any questions.

Best of luck to all those who are entering!

A quick update on the SA barista comp

It's all very confusing but the competition to crown the 2010 state barista champion of South Australia is set to take place mid september (yes, in 2009). Here's some info taken straight from the minutes of the last meeting:

"The SA state Barista Competition will be held at the RHAS Adelaide Show on Thursday the 10^th of September with the Latte Art and Cupping being held on the 11^th of September. We have been bumped from the Goyder Pavilion. The new location will be between the Goyder and Wayville Pavilions in the food court. This may not be ideal but is undercover and will get us maximum exposure and gives us 2 full days with no interruption."

Now a lot of things are yet to be confirmed but to get the rumour file cracking here's some 'too early to be released information'.

Judges:

Brian Raslan

Brian Lewis

Bill Comley

Craig Dickson

Remo Russo

Mario Macri

Ben Rosenthal

Richard Carman

Cameron Ballard

Alan Holroyd

Ian Callahan (That's me!)

Brad Nixon (still yet to confirm, but I'm badgering him!)

Prizes: Confirmed 2nd and 3rd place getters for the barista and latte art comp will something from the lovely greg pullman (at a guess I'd say one of his fantastic Tamps) and 2nd and 3rd in cupping will get something from Rio (at a guess I'd say some ACF cups). Also, expobar is rumoured to be supplying the 1st place prize so it's probably one of their prosumers but this is still yet to be confirmed.

So if there are any budding baristi out there who wanna step up, or if you want to come lend a hand, send me an email or better yet, contact Bill Comley direct on 0407 714 560.

I'll let you know as more developments occur

Well we're finally open!

>

Our doors officially opened at 7am Monday the 13th July. We had opened a few sporadic days over the previous two weeks earlier and were pleased that a small group of loyal customers eagerly awaited our full launch and five day trade.

We were super excited about the fact that we had (*touch wood*) no power issues (which for those of you who aren't in the know, has been our primary issue/concern for the past couple of months). Hot water, the fridges, dishwasher, grinders and Synesso have all been firing without a hiccup and I couldn't be happier.

Of course our pastry chef came down with swine flu, and any and all of Adelaide's decent cake suppliers are all terrible at following up on potential new clients (aka 'me') which meant that we needed to bake a hell of a lot of cakes and pastries to go along with all of the coffee that was heading out the door. Many long hours (2am finish) followed by many early starts (back up at 5.30am) meant a fair amount of coffee was in order - luckily we knew just the place! I can honestly say I haven't consumed as much coffee as I did over the past week. So we are eternally grateful to our expert roaster, 5 Senses and the other roasters whose guest blends kept us going!

We were a lot busier than I anticipated, which is always great, but it did cause quite a few stress related headaches. Luckily we had some of the best Barista's in the state pop in to lend a hand and pull some shots. We also had a few special guests including the owners of Auction Rooms (one of Melbourne premier destination cafe/roastery's), Ash and Libbey of Crema Magazine and

Instaurator ('Inny'), author of the Espresso Quest, Chairman of AASCA and all round coffee guru.

We've actually been overwhelmingly surprised by the amount of interstate visitors, especially Melbournites, who have popped their heads into Bar 9. We've had an army of caffeine veterans from the likes of St Ali, Brother Bubba Budan and Seven Seeds. I'm not sure what these people were doing in SA, or how they heard of Bar 9, but thanks! Having such educated palates coming though has been nerve-wracking but in lieu of the tons of positive feedback we've been getting it has also been very comforting.

We have also had our first online review so thank goodness it was positive! And a big thank you to Beanhunter for making us the featured cafe (at the time of this writing). We are also being profiled in the next issue of Bean Scene so keep an eye out for that.

All in all the response has been very positive, and we welcome any further feedback graciously. A great big thank you to everyone who has popped through the doors and to everyone who has helped make the opening on bar 9 a reality. I've said it to many of my friends, if ever there was a cafe destined to never get opened it was Bar 9 - but perseverance, a pinch of luck, and a tonne of help and support has helped get us over the line. So thank you once again to everyone, and to those of you who haven't been in yet please pop in and say hi!

,.,