SCASA has announced the regional barista champs for Gauteng will be held at the Good Food and Wine show in October/November this year. The regionals are the qualifying events for the Nationals which will be taking place in Jan 2009 with the winner going to the WBC. 6 Finalists have already been choosen at the Cape Town and Joburg events so this is your last chance to qualify for the Nationals if you want a chance off going to the WBC. Regionals will be run La Marzocco GB5 with the nationals being run on the La Simonelli

Date: 30 & 31 October and 1 & 2 November 2008

Venue: Coca-Cola Dome

 If you want any more details  Tanya Price: 021 797 4500 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Hi Guys

A big thanks to everyone who attended the Jam at Bean There, was a fantastic event with loads of new faces there. Sarah and Jonothan from Bean There were fantastic hosts and I thought that the "Coffee Quiz" was a great idea. It was also great being able to make some coffee on their La Marzocco although I saw a few people struggling with their micro-foaming (give me LESS power Scotty). Trevor and Neil introduced a few people to making an espresso on a real machine, not one off those push button french press machine :-). We had a total of 39 people attend the event so we are still growing these events very nicely.

If you have any suggestions as to how we can improve on these events in the future please be sure to add your comments to the thread in the forum. I almost think that it is time that we have some sort of agenda for these Jams so as to keep things on track in the future, any thoughts? 

As to the next Jam, we are looking at having the next Jam at Koldserve, they have one of the WBC Competition La Marzocco machines due in their show room very soon so I think that a trip there may be in order. Dates for this are still to be finalised but I will let you guys know as soon as we are sorted out.

JohnB

Ian and Sean from 4th Avenue roasters have opened up a coffee shop in Rosebank so I thought I would stop in and see how they were doing. Judging from how busy they were  would  say that they have been warmly welcomed by the locals as they seem to be keeping them very busy. They have a beautiful Elektra Belle Epoque espresso machine  which adds to the great vibe of the cafe so if you are in the area be sure to stop by for a great cup of coffee.

Our next Jam is going to be at the Bean There roastery @ 44 Stanley Ave in Milpark on the 12th of September. We are going to start at 19:00 and I am sure will continue until pretty late. 

Jonathan and Sarah from Bean There have promised some awesome beans for us and will have their own La Marzocco machine for us to pull some shots on. We will be running our regular Latte Art compo but I think that this time we are going to switch it around a bit. We will be running the shoot-out on Bean There's La Marzocco, it will be very interesting to see how the home barista's handle LOADS of steam power. I will also see if I can twist Jonathan's arm to do a roast for us in their new Probat roaster so we can all see the roasting process.

Please also bring along your own equipment, there will be loads of people there will to give some advice/assistance as well as milk on coffee so this is the ideal place to sharpen up your espresso skills.There will be a small charge to cover the snacks and milk for the event.

There will be some snacks available so please make sure that you RSVP to the thread in the forum so that we can get an idea of numbers for catering.  

See you guys there.

 JohnB