Welcome to the 2nd annual Vancouver Foodster Barista Signature Beverage Challenge. I have invited cafes from all over the city to enter up to two of their baristas and their respective signature beverage creation into this challenge, their baristas had to create a new beverage just for this challenge. Each café will be featuring their Signature Beverage creation on their menu from September 8-30, 2014.

 

How Does this all Work? Well, this is a public challenge, you are invited to go out and order any or all of the signature Beverage creations in this challenge, then you decide who you think has the best Beverage creation.

Share your experiences: Tweet (and don’t forget to tweet, facebook or instagram your photos) throughout the challenge, our twitter address is @Vanfoodster and the hashtag is #BaristaChallengeYVR please include this hashtag in all your tweets during the promotion.

Voting criteria –  some things to help you judge your favourite beverage – keep these things in mind: originality, creativity, uniqueness, traditional, non-traditional, price, value and most importantly taste.

My Favourites — if you have picked up one of the challenge postcards from the participating cafes, flip it over to the backside and keep a record of your favourite baristas and their beverage creations.

> > > > WATCH  Global TV Saturday Noon News Barista Challenge with host Leigh Kjekstad along with Richard Wolak (aka Vanfoodster)

Here are the 6 Baristas and their Signature Beverage creations in this challenge, listed in no particular order other than when they were received by us.

Barista: Erika Driver

Stir Coffee House

Signature Beverage Creation: Tasting Flight

Price: $7.00

Erika Driver is a barista and student from Ladner, BC. Her interest in coffee began through her father who brought Erika to countless cafes during his search for the perfect latte.  At home, he made espresso for Erika and her brothers. He taught them how to brew using a French press. As children, Erika and her brothers would fight to be the one to press the filter after a four minute steep. Erika is now a barista at Stir Coffee House where her passion for coffee blossomed. She’s obsessed with trying different beans from different origins, and of different roasts, trying every brewing technique she has at her fingertips. She is intrigued with the way one kind of bean can transform through different styles of brewing. In her spare time she searches for her favourite coffee from different cafes in the lower mainland. Today, she enjoys espresso, drip, and cappuccinos.

Tasting Flight

Featuring: 49th Parallel Coffee Roasters‘ Ethiopian Suke Quto Organic Single Origin Espresso

Because Erika enjoys transforming one type of coffee bean through different brewing techniques, she has prepared a delicious tasting flight of three beverages. These drinks range from 1-5oz, and include an espresso, pour over, and Gibraltar, using the same beans for each.

Espresso (1 oz): a single espresso shot of Suke Quto.

Iced Pour Over (5 oz): Suke Quto brewed manually, served over ice.

Gibraltar or ‘Cortado’ (5 oz): a single espresso shot of Suke Quto cut with a bit of steamed whole milk.

Stir Coffee House

101-5085 48th Avenue, Delta

Tel: (604) 940-8005

Web: http://stircoffeehouse.com/  

Twitter: @StirCoffeeHouse

Hours: Mon to Fri – 7am to 6pm, Sat – 8am to 6pm, Sun – 8am to 5pm

 

Barista: Daniel Wong

Crackle Creme

Signature Beverage Creation: Silky Sarong

Price: $3.85 + tax

On twitter @cracklecreme

Owner and operator of Crackle Creme, Daniel opened his shop in June 2014, the first of its kind in Vancouver  offering all different types of artisan, small-batch creme brulees. Previously employed in the automotive industry as a refinisher, Daniel loves seeing the end creative result of experimenting, mixing different things that end up  going well together. Seeing the ability for his creative passion to be adapted to other things, the concept of applying it to creme brulee was one that was very interesting to him. Having never worked in the restaurant industry prior to his current venture, every day presents something new to learn for Daniel. From the experience of interacting with people to creating new flavours of creme brulee, every day is a new day.

Silky Sarong

Featuring Caffe d’Arte espresso, callebaut white chocolate, Lemongrass, Lime leaves, Dried lemongrass powder and topped with saffron powder.

Crackle Creme

245 Union Street, Vancouver

Tel: 778-847-8533

Web: http://cracklecreme.com/

Twitter: @cracklecreme

Hours: Closed Monday & Tuesday, open Wednesday – Sunday from 11:30 am until 10pm.

 

Barista:  Tony Lovse

Main Street Honey Shoppe

Signature Beverage Creation:  Honey Breve Stinger

Price:  $5.00 including tax

Tony is the Chief Honey Officer at the Main Street Honey Shoppe and has been involved in all aspects of producing and researching the health benefits of honey and other healthy honeybee products.  As an unlikely Barista, Tony did not even like coffee growing up.  It was while travelling through Italy in his University days that he tried his first Latte, which resulted in him becoming a lover of fine coffee.

Tony’s passion is to spread the word about the health benefits of honey and other honeybee products, and to provide a large selection of specialty honeys and other quality honeybee products, both local and from around the world.  Besides honey tasting at the Honey Shoppe, honey is used in fresh baked goods, fruit smoothies with pollen, organic loose leaf tea, and of course great espresso drinks.

Guess what a Honey Shoppe might include in a Signature Drink.  Honey!

Honey Breve Stinger

We have applied our specialty honey knowledge (with a little help from our specialty coffee friends) to make a simply fantastic “Honey Breve Stinger”.  Our latte art leaves a little to be desired, but the right combination of high quality ingredients results in a simple, but delicious comfort drink for those cool autumn days. Buckwheat honey blends beautifully with espresso and adds a rich, full bodied flavour with a subtle sweetness.  Enjoy!

Main Street Honey Shoppe

4125 Main Street

Web: http://www.mainstreethoney.com/

Twitter: @mainstreethoney

Hours: Monday-Saturday 10am to 7pm, Sunday 11am to 6pm

 

Barista: Ron LaQuaglia

Glenburn Soda Fountain

Signature Beverage Creation:  Lemon Ginger Dream ice cream soda

Price: $5

Ron LaQuaglia is head Soda Jerk at Glenburn Soda Fountain. Originally from Massachusetts, Ron spend his childhood summers at the baseball diamond where he played and coached little league. A return to simpler times like those summers of his youth was the inspiration for the creation of Glenburn.

Ron enjoys experimenting with handmixed sodas, phosphates and lactarts using the shoppe’s 1931 Walrus Soda Fountain and mixing up malts and milkshakes on one of Glenburn’s two vintage Hamilton Beach mixers.

Lemon Ginger Dream ice cream soda

It is an old-fashioned ice cream soda made with lemon and ginger syrups, soda water, lemon sorbet from Rocky Pt Ice Cream and Birchwood Dairy Vanilla ice cream.

Glenburn Soda Fountain

4090 Hastings St, Burnaby

Tel: (604) 500-4548

Web:  http://glenburnsoda.com/

Twitter: @glenburnsoda

Hours: Closed Monday, Tuesday – Friday 2pm – 10pm, Saturday 1pm-10pm, Sunday 2pm-8pm

Barista: Sophie

Momento Coffee House

Signature Beverage Creation: Vanilla Explosion Gelato

Price: $4.95

Vanilla Explosion Gelato

Vanilla explosion gelato, 2 shots of espresso, 1/4 teaspoon of maple syrup in the cup before espresso shot, 1  scoop gelato, garnish with smoked bacon crisps and covered with maple syrup a pinch of sicilia course sea salt.

Momento Coffee House

577 Great Northern Way, Vancouver

Tel:604-828-5282

Web: www.momentocoffeehouse.com

Twitter: @momentocoffee

Hours: 7am -5pm Mon-Fri 

 

Barista: Kay Cheng

Shaktea

Signature Beverage Creation: Honey Lavendar infused Matcha latte

Price: $

A tea and hockey fanatic, Kay is always striving to brew the perfect cup of tea for our customers at Shaktea. Always one to innovate, the Honey Lavender Matcha Latte is her way of fusing the soothing nature of lavender with the matcha boost we all love at the store.

Honey Lavendar infused Matcha latte

The classic matcha latte with a subtly sweet and floral twist. We’ve combined organic lavender and honey with traditional stone ground matcha to give your day a flavorful kick!

Shaktea

3702 Main Street

Tel: (604) 873-5151

Web: www.shaktea.ca

Twitter: @Shaktea

Hours: Mon – Sat 12-10pm, Sundays 11am-6:30pm

 

Make sure you pick up one of the Barista Challenge postcards available at each of the participating cafes and keep a record of your favourite Signature Beverage creations. Remember to Vote for your favourites daily, all the voting details are at https://vancouverfoodster.com/barista-challenge/

Our Media judges for this challenge are:

Randall Shirley

Travel Writer & editor for magazines, cruise website, broadcast personality

Twitter: @Randall_Shirley

Adrian Harris

Food Blogger for his own http://www.foodgays.com/

Twitter: @talldarkroast

Joyce Lam

Food Blogger for her own http://vanfoodies.com/

Twitter: @vanfoodies

 

Thank you to Andrew Freeburn and Danny Bresciani at ECM for their support and assistance with this challenge.