On Winning
By Brian February 10, 2020
There is a big gap between the feeling when you finish second, or third -- as we have done handfuls of times -- and the feeling when you finish first. The feeling of winning, of putting yourself out there and competing with the best coffee roasters in the Southeast, and being named THE best. We've long aspired to win the prestigious Charleston Coffee Fest, and now we have, and it feels really good and really right.
Below are journal entries from Donovan, Director of Coffee, and Dora, Director of Retail Operations.
From Donovan
Brian and I began exploring options for the Best Coffee competition back in December. We started that search knowing two things:
1) We wanted to win
2) We would need a really unique coffee to do that.
During our search for a great competition coffee, we got in touch with Royal (ed. note — via former Summit barista Spencer, who trades coffee out in Oakland now), who recommended an exciting lot that they were releasing through their Crown Jewel program. Brian and I jumped at the opportunity and we were lucky enough to acquire 44 pounds of a first harvest Gesha from San Agustín, in Huila, Colombia. This lot from producer Gabriel Muñoz has been cultivated for three years and meticulously processed by Gabriel as well to highlight the nuanced complexities of his coffee. Gabriel has his own micro-mill at Finca Los Alerces where he carefully harvests cherries, then hand sorts and floats them to remove damaged and less dense beans before de-pulping and fermenting for 36 hours. Afterwards, he washes the coffee to remove the mucilage and then gently dries it on raised beds over a period of 3 weeks. This attention to detail in processing produced an incredible lot of coffee that allowed us to win the competition!
Once we received Gabriel's coffee, we immediately began to prep for roasting. I spent the weeks prior to CCF taking the moisture content of the green coffee, picking through each batch of coffee both before and after roasting, and finally cupping the test batches daily. I brought in coworkers to cup this coffee, sent samples to friends to get feedback and adjusted the profile to highlight the things I loved most about Gabriel's coffee. I've lost my voice talking about this coffee over the past couple of weeks, and certainly made a few of my coworkers lose their sanity.
As much work as we put into this coffee, I'm still a little shocked that we won. Summit is honored to have competed and participated with such incredible roasters throughout the Southeast, and we're humbled to win CCF's Best Coffee competition. So after all of this bluster, here is what you can expect in the cup for Los Alerces: A nuanced, complex and building experience with notes of white grape, gardenia, marzipan, toffee, red currant, papaya and rose.
From Dora
Winning first place in the Best Coffee competition is a huge deal for Summit. It’s proof that our grit, can-do attitude, and team can help us achieve anything. In the midst of launching franchises and instant coffee, running three busy cafés, another round of renovations at Basecamp and so much more, we earned first place in a competition we’ve been trying to win for years.
Every year at the Charleston Coffee Fest the winner is announced at the very end of the competition, so the day is spent meeting folks spending their Sunday tasting coffee and getting a glimpse of the coffee world. We had a line of 20-30 people for four hours. We were able to serve coffee to people who were so curious and excited about Summit that they were willing to wait in a long line of people for a 3 oz sample of our coffee.
When they finally announced the results of the competition, everything happened so quickly. I missed the announcement of third place and barely caught second from the back of the room because of all the bustle happening around us. When they announced first place, Wes and I screamed and everyone cheered around us. It was an awesome moment because it felt like the room was full of energy - people were so excited that we’d won, partially because of how excited we were about it.
That’s something about the Summit team that I’m proud of everywhere we go - whether we’re serving coffee in Denver, at the Charleston Coffee Fest, or in our cafés. We’re a really great team. We put so much work and care into what we’re doing and we have the most fun doing it. I’m proud of our team, proud of our coffee, proud of Summit. Also, if you can get your hands on the limited release coffee we won with, Los Alerces, you should. It kicks ass.
link to original journal.