The second event of Creators Cup season two and the first ever event outside the EU. Super exciting times when you get to go to exotic new countries/towns.
St Petersburg first off is a fantastic city full of energy, music and creativity. Secondly Creators Cup was being held at the St Petersburg Barista Marathon along side regional WCE events Cup Tasters, Barista and National championship final of Czesve/Ibrik. It was an honour to have Creators Cup in the same competition rotation as these WCE events. Due to this the Creators Cup competitors were mostly made up of heavy hitter in the Russian coffee competition scene and traveled from all over the country to compete.
The local partner/host was North West Coffee Company who helped with seeing up the stage and running everything. Thanks to them the competition was full and went off without a hitch.
They also found a barista/ilustrator to create a fantastic design for the event.
The artwork was by @tiptopbrew Артем Вячеславович
It was a strange feeling to be running Creators Cup between rounds of the Russian Czesve/Ibrik national finals but it worked very well. There was a great audience and having Creators Cup in such an environment really enhanced the feeling of freedom that this competition provides.
this spirit of freedom and creativity was really on show with the Russian edition. Some competitors were dressed to match their brewing device theme and others created sculptures, that happen to brew coffee.
The approach to this competition was fantastic. Not only were the devices beautiful but the also worked very well and brewed tasty coffees. Judging this event was very very hard, there were a lot of incredible devices that competed for the awards. In the end there was not much between the devices but some people did make it through to win prizes.
This event also saw a wild card entry making a lovely angel brewer from a paper cup. It is always great to see someone who is curious about the competition but when you can convince them to step in and compete with only about an hour to prepare that is part of the fun. It would be great to see more wild cards enter in future competitions.
Angel brewer made and practiced with less than an hour.
So if you are sitting here thinking 'wow... this was the wild card? What next?' Well I will let you take a look , in no particular order.
So now you are asking... 'So what were the outcomes?'
Patience...
Only joking!
The winners: Nika, Kirill and Roman
Best Brew: Nika! With her crab meat camping brewer. This hobo/woodsman brewing device was such a visual pleasure but it also brewed up a seriously tasty cup.
The filter was a kalita but inside the crab meat can was a wire frame that gave more airflow to the filter and as such helped give this brew a really clean and sweet character.
Respect to the style on this one too. Nika dressed the part.
Best Design: Roman! This was one technical brewer. Their was no need to measuring water because the vacuum system would suck up only one amount of water. This was then passed through a tin can (there are multiple options so you can play with dose depth, width and flow speed) which then pours into a cup.
This device was doing so many things and unfortunately my Russian is bad because I am sure I missed out on some of the other features that this device can do and brew.
Overall Winner: Kirill!! His device was made out of shiny pipes. Everyone likes shiny stuff so style points came into play here ;) but also the brewing device was something different. It used a long column of water to brew through a narrow chamber with the does nestled in the bottom.
This was then filtered again to cool and refine the brew. This two stage filtration created a sweet and bright coffee that really took the day.
Also this brewing device looks like it can be used as a hammer and still function so we all liked that.
The Judges
I also really wanted to thank my judges.
Agnija from Riga, Latvia.
Jane from Minsk, Belarus.
Nastya from Moscow, Russia.
It was an absolute joy to work with these professionals.
Well done to all the contestants, winners and a big thanks to the judges.
As always I want to thank the fantastic sponsors who help keep Creators Cup running:
BUNN EU/UK: As always their backing is such a help.
Panama Variatles: For always keeping the compulsory coffee tasty for the judges.
And
Coffee Desk: Thanks for the shiny kettles and stickers.
