Traveling & Events
Wow .. time has flown! In just over 3 months I’ll be on my way back home to Perth.
So I figured it was time to squeeze in a bit of last minute travelling and “coffeeing” before my year in Canada comes to an end. As of tomorrow Wayne, Lewis (our dog) and I are hitting the road and driving to Montreal (5 hrs) to spend a bit of time with family, do some last minute skiing and spend some quality time at Café Veritas and Myriad. I am going to try and squeeze into a weekly Sunday cupping session at Myriad, although word on the street is that they are mostly completely booked. I’ll be happily hanging around Montreal for almost 3 weeks until I meet up with the infamous Ben Bicknell who will be flying in from Melbourne. For those of you who don’t know, Ben the super slurper took out this year’s Aussie cupping title and is headed to Atlanta to judge at the WBC (lucky!) What still impresses me is the speed at which he accomplished his win, 8 for 8 in 1 min 29sec, just narrowly missing the world record.
From there, Ben and I will hang out in Montreal for the weekend and then we are off to Vermont (a two hour drive) for a week long cupping course at Coffee Lab. I’m really looking forward to getting back to the Lab and I’m sure it will also be good practice for Ben with the upcoming World Cupping Competition in Germany this June. From Vermont we head back to Montreal for the weekend and then fly out to Atlanta the following Monday. We’ve allocated a week in Atlanta giving us ample time to check out the coffee scene as well as attend the SCAA (Specialty Coffee Association of America) conference as well as the WBC (World Barista Championship). This time Ben and I have booked ourselves in to as many courses as possible to try and get the most out of the conference. It’s going to be a very tight schedule over the weekend and a bit of mission to fit it all in but I’m sure we’ll manage. Once that is all said and done we happily pack our bags and hop on plane early Monday morning to Guatemala for 8 days. For now our only plan in to base ourselves in Antigua and travel from there, visiting coffee farms being a top priority. We keep going from Guatemala and this time end up in San Francisco for just under a week for a coffee related tour. We were trying to squeeze a trip to Portland in but it looks like that will have to wait for another trip. We then fly to LA where I spend the next two weeks doting over my new niece and Ben catches a flight back to Melbourne. While in LA I’m not far from Intelligentsia on Sunset and am excited about having it as my local café even if only for a short while. Following LA I fly back to Toronto and stay put for a short while, I’m trying to juggle one last little trip down south but am not quite sure if I’ll make it in time, I’ll keep you posted.
Needless to say I am excited … one more sleep and I’m off!
Jen
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