Competition time

I almost forgot

Its that time of the year again when the canadian baristas dust off their tampers and do a lot of prep work for the Canadians.
And an interesting one is that Sammy Piccolo has dusted off his comp gear after a couple of years and hitting the circuit at the Westerns.
A big congratulations go out to Sam,Momiji and Alex for the easterns.
Sam (Manic Coffee) took out first spot,Momiji (Darkhorse Espresso) took fourth spot,and Alex (Mercury) took fifth.
So if anyone ventures out to Toronto make sure to drop into these guys as they do a wonderful job.

The Mighty Green Falls in Oz

So news so far at home is that Starbucks will close 61 stores in Australia,with 85 stores nationally,it would be a huge dent on the market.

Although Im not sad to see them pull up stumps and go.
I remember the early days in Sydney When they first came into town and opened up near the cafe i was working at in Chatswood and the staff at Starbucks Would walk around to our place and harrass the customers with their versions of a short black served in a plastic cup,and our customers would just look at the guys and look at me to see if that was cool to do and i would say go ahead put it up against the one i made you and see which one you like.The look on the faces was just priceless.

I was probably a little sadistic at that point,so instead of letting the pain continue i had to ask the starbucks staff not to harass my customers again.

With the Australian espresso culture being so strong i am surprised that they managed to have survived so long,but then again what would the international students drink?