Competing in Coffee Competitions So You Can Get Famous is a Slippery Slope
Image Credit: WBC
When I was coming up as a coffee professional in the 2000s in the Sydney specialty coffee scene almost two decades ago, taking part in coffee competitions was highly frowned upon amongst serious coffee professionals. When I would ask barista’s I looked up to at the time why they didn’t compete, many would say some version of “The bar is where you prove yourself, not in a competition with no real-life situations to prove how good you are. We can all make a good coffee when we’ve got 15 minutes to do it, but can you make a great coffee again and again with 30 people standing in the queue at 8.45 in the morning when everyone is trying to get to work? That’s when it counts.”. This was a popular consensus amongst the most respected baristas of the time. Given how disconnected competition was from the high volume cafes I was working in (they ranged between 500 to 1500 espresso-based drinks per day with 1-3 baristas on shift) this thinking made a lot of sense.
Entrants were so scarce in Sydney regional comps back then that some years people from the crowd were asked to step in and compete just to make up the minimum number of entrants required for the competition to go ahead. This, in a city known for being formative (along with other cities like Melbourne) in how the role of the barista would evolve around the world in the coming two decades.
Fast forward to today and oh my how things have changed. Competitions are serious business with substantial time, money and resource investment required if one’s aspirations take them to success beyond the national level and onto the world championships. I’ve heard competitors quote budgets in the order of $100,000 required to get them and their team to the world championships in recent years.
With such a substantial investment required, one has to ask, to what end? For champions like Sasa Sestic, Tim Wendelboe and James Hoffmann, they have used their status as World Barista Champions to launch successful businesses that have gone on to cultivate more champion contenders, education platforms and innovation across different sectors of the industry. The efforts invested in attaining their titles went on to progress long term projects that have contributed to their own long term success as well as giving back to the wider industry.
WBC Champion Sasa Sestic
Interestingly though, as competition has become more popular over the last few years, when I ask people why competition is so important to them the response has been (as though admitting a dirty little secret) “because I want to be famous”.
How utterly fascinating! I have been perplexed with the idea of popularity and fame since I was a child. To be frank, I’d never understood what it was about fame that turned people on so much. I’d always wanted to belong somewhere but never wanted to be the most popular kid. Suffice to say, I’ve never felt like I belonged anywhere and I’ve never been the popular kid.
Then, through my music career, I started to get a tiny taste of real fame when one of my songs was being considered for the “Twilight Saga: New Moon” film soundtrack. I realized very quickly how addictive fame could be. This was a drug to be treated with great caution. A trap that, if you’re lonely or feel as though you don’t belong (traits that are prevalent in many professionals in the coffee industry for some reason), could prove more potent than you’d bargained for. And once you’ve started to feed the fame beast you’ll stay beholden to it until it either the hype dries up or you stop feeding it… and the withdrawals and aftermath can be brutal on your mental health. I was lucky to see the trappings quickly. Many of my colleagues were not as fortunate.
I see the same thing happening in coffee and when people tell me they want to compete to get famous, I ask them what they’re going to do once they get there. Do they have a plan for what they’ll do with that fame to either progress their career or go into business? Or are they simply expecting that being famous will mean they’ve “made it” and everything will just fall into their lap after that? Most of them are barely looking beyond the moment they might receive that trophy if they’re fortunate enough to get that far.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but competing simply to “get famous” in coffee is incredibly short-sighted.
There’s nothing at all wrong with competing. There’s nothing at all wrong with being recognized for the work you’ve put it. But fame as a sole reward for what it’s going to take you to get there is a hollow end to a very hard road.
I’d invite you to consider perhaps repurposing your objectives and consider taking your aspirations a little further. Rather than having fame as the end-game, make it a part of the “marketing plan”. A stepping stone to launching or progressing projects you’re excited about and want to bring attention to after you’ve achieved your competition goals. This could be a new career path you’re hoping to break into and will leverage your new-found competition status to open doors that were closed to you previously. Or a new business venture you’re seeking investment for that now has a greater chance at success with your fame as an added attraction for potential investors.
This approach gives a shelflife to your competition efforts beyond the hollowness of fame alone. You’ll build on the momentum of your success and leverage your fame to progress you professionally in more meaningful endeavors rather than leave you stuck in a moment in time where the most you’ll ever have achieved ended at the first really hard thing you did.
Keep progressing. Keep building. Keep doing the harder stuff that keeps uncovering the limitless potential you really have. Be recognized for doing meaningful things for yourself and for others. And for the love of all things coffee, avoid the trappings of doing anything just to get famous. While the famous-for-no-real-reason-cool-kids are spending endless hours posting yet another selfie, the real “cool kids” are out there crushing it by building sustainable businesses, employing people while paying a fair wage, finding ways to conspire to their employer’s success, showing up for themselves, taking care of their mental health, innovating and all the other hard shit that comes with living a purpose-filled life.
Build the life you choose.
This article was written by Lee Safar. Lee is the founder of MAP IT FORWARD and the CEO of Elixir Specialty Coffee Inc. An 18-year veteran of the Australian Specialty Coffee industry, Lee is now based in San Diego, California where she runs both businesses and records daily episodes of The MAP IT FORWARD Podcast featuring guests from around the world specializing in all sectors of the coffee value chain. Lee travels the world doing professional business and career development focused workshops and consultations for the global coffee industry.
Lee has a bachelors degree in Science (Genetics) from the University of NSW, an associate diploma in counseling and interpersonal skills, extensive experience in project management and business analysis in the corporate sector, and was a releasing music artist and record label owner.