The World’s Top Barista Discourses on Coffee in Havana
Over the past ten years, Dale Harris has been trying to raise the awareness of the role of the barista as a profession rather than just a job.
Now, as the reigning winner of the World Barista Championship (WBC) –he was crowned in November 2017 in Korea- Mr. Harris finds himself better prepared to stand up for what he knows best and loves most: coffee.
Within the framework of the ongoing 8th edition of the Excelencias Gourmet International Gastronomic Seminar, organized by the Excelencias Group, Dale Harris decided to accept the invitation and come to Cuba for the first time.
This enthusiastic and charismatic young man climbed onstage Tuesday afternoon to deliver one of the most anticipated masterclasses of the three-day event in Havana. He delved into the realm of coffee, its brands and, above all, the ways to highlight its different tastes.
“Chefs and bartenders spend their lives working with hundreds of ingredients or hundreds of spirits. I have spent the last few years working on just one. I’m obsessed with coffee and trying to understand what it is,” Mr. Harris told an audience of over 300 delegates and guests attending this year’s seminar.
The WBC champion brewed half a dozen coffees from six different farms from the same amount of world regions, and he did it in two different ways for a grand total of twelves servings. The first six coffees were made naturally, while the other half endured a more technical process in a bid to underscore its acidity.
A dozen volunteers from the public was invited to step onstage and have a sipping taste of the two versions of the same coffee. The end results were as varied as the composition of the improvised tasters. Yet, they did agree on one thing: both versions of the six coffees tasted great, despite their differences in notes and flavors.
“Sweetness is perhaps the most difficult thing to achieve in coffee. Sweetness is the one things that strikes a balance between its sour taste and its acidity,” Mr. Harris went on to explain as he was brewing his delicious coffee samples.
Even though this is not the first time that coffee is part of the seminar’s scientific program, this time around the organizers took the beverage up a notch by inviting one of the world’s best coffee connoisseurs.
