The Coffee Man: Sasa Sestic's Journey in Becoming 2015's World Barista Champion

Monday, June 27, 2016

It's been months since I last watch a Documentary Film, back when I was in college, I used to watch a lot of Documentary films and International screenings with my friends and I kinda miss it now since I've been busy with work and covering events. What I love about Documentary films is that it gives me a lot of knowledge. 

Viewing documentaries is also incredibly educational. As a person committed to personal growth, I feel obligated to educate myself in numerous ways. The majority of the time I come away from a finished documentary a more intelligent individual. We must get excited about educating ourselves. We are responsible for our own education.

This week (June 25), I got the chance to watch The Coffee Man at Rockwell Cinema 5, special thanks to SANREMO COFFEE PHILIPPINES. I am really thankful that I got invited to this special screening since I am also a coffee lover. I learned so many things about coffee and about Barista competitions which inspired in so many ways.

 The movie screening was filled with overflowing drinks and the aroma of coffee is all around us. It was nice to watch a movie about coffee and at the same time sipping a hot coffee on hand, I loved my Choconut Nut Latte. 

The Coffee Man follows the acclaimed Bosnian-born Australian barista Sasa Sestic around the world as he travels to various origins in search of coffees of the highest imaginable quality. The film documents these adventures as well as Sestic’s experiences in the run-up to the 2015 World Barista Championships, including his preparation, the competition itself, and ultimately his victory.

Honestly speaking, just by looking at Sasa's journey because his victory, it must've been really hard for them to capture every step of this movie simply because they traveled different countries and most of this places are not really that easy to reach. From Ethiopia to Columbia, it was a nonstop journey to  see the trees themselves and hunt for wild coffee.

Sasa Sestic, a coffee professional, green buyer, and barista from Canberra, Australia, has won the 2015 World Barista Championship in Seattle, Washington. The event took place over four days in conjunction with the SCAA Event trade show, attended by many thousands of coffee lovers from around the globe. Mr. Sestic won the WBC on behalf of Ona Coffee, a specialty coffee company with retail locations and roast works in Canberra, Australia’s capital city.

But the main challenge was when Sasa was competing for the International scene, it was really a heart-pounding moment and I felt like I was also there cheering for Sasa while he was competing. I never thought Barista championships would be that challenging and difficult because they need o be focused, they need to engage and they need history and a big background about coffee they'll be making.

So whattechnique did Sasa did during the Barista Championship? “Carbonic maceration" is a red wine-making process which transforms a small amount of sugar in grapes which are uncrushed into ethanol, without the intervention of yeasts. It is used typically to produce light-bodied, brightly coloured, fruity red wines for early consumption, most famously but by no means exclusively in the Beaujolais region of France.

The technique is increasingly popular among progressive natural winemakers on the American west coast and especially in Australia, home to some of the most vibrant, experimental, and gleefully weird winemaking on the planet. What happens if you take the above technique and apply it to coffee cherries? And not just any coffee cherries, but some of the rarest on the planet? Apparently you win the World Barista Championship.

There are a lot of documentaries about Coffee worldwide but “The Coffee Man,” tells a multifaceted story of one particularly compelling industry figure with a diverse background engaging in an even higher-profile, in a more intense competition which takes you back on how coffee are made, how Baristas create that perfect blend and how it's never too late to achieve your dreams and goals no matter how old you get.

Check out the trailer of The Coffee Man:

Thank you once again to Sanremo Coffee Machines Philippines for inviting us. I truly enjoyed the movie and the whole event. Can't wait to try the Delonghi Coffee maker as well. It's an enriching event that made me love Coffee even more plus Sasa made me realize that's it's perseverance and hard work is a perfect combination.

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