It's Fight Week - Live from Dubai

Competition Week - What does that mean?

The last week has been spent in a training lab, finalizing the details for a 15 minute presentation that will potentially garner the title of National Barista Champion.

It’s Monday night, here in Dubai, and we’re shutting down the last day before the big show. By the time you read this email the competition will be done and all competitors will have presented - results to follow on Wednesday.

What does it mean to participate in a competition? And how did we get involved?

Well, as coaches and consultants, we’re often traveling to work with top-talent around the world and help them take their game to the next level. We finesse and develop the 15 minute speech, create a dance-routine out of the work flow, making it look seamless and fluid, and we assist in sourcing top-tier coffee and profiling it with our team back home. We’re a full package deal, should a competitor want to plug us in for assistance, top to bottom.

Our goal is to support a competitor and help them harness their voice, bring out their message and ensure that it’s delivered in their style - not impose ours. The presentation tomorrow is about Emirati Hospitality. It’s utilizing a coffee that we sourced and roasted for Nooran, the competitor, and we’re pretty thrilled with how it’s tasting in the previous days.

With us, we brought 6 batches, all slightly variant roast profiles - each enough for the full round of competition. We often don’t know how the coffee will react with the water, with the machine, with the local environment, etc, so we bring some options to ensure we’re not forced to make one roast work. The espresso is dynamite, with cherry blossom, red cherry, raspberry, pineapple and a candy-like sweetness to support the complexity, and a juicy texture to keep you wanting more.

Each day this week, we taste, we refine, we take notes, we discuss and then we circle back through all of the above. We shift to presentation practice, running full build routines, step-by-step, action-by-action. We take notes, we critique and then we circle back again, through all of the above.

These competitions can be life changing for those who truly put in the work and commit to the practice. Winning your nation can change the trajectory of your career, your business, or generally open new doors to opportunity you did not previously anticipate. Take us as a prime example - when we started 15 years ago in regional competitions, we never anticipated we would be brought in to support a team in the United Arab Emirates, or anywhere else throughout the globe.

Here we are, dreamers, do-ers and believers. Step-by-step, hand-in-hand, we’re doing the best we can and working to bring others along with us on the journey.

Send your best energy as we head in tomorrow for the big day.

It’sssssssssss tiiiiiiimeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Reading: Simon Sinek, in The Infinite Game, argues that businesses thrive when they adopt an “infinite” mindset, focusing on long-term vision, adaptability, and purpose rather than short-term wins. Companies that play the infinite game prioritize resilience, continuous improvement, and a mission-driven approach over chasing quarterly profits

Watching: Guess the Drip is a fun and interactive coffee challenge where guests smell, taste, and analyze a mystery coffee to guess its aroma, flavors, origin, farm, varietal, and process—all totally blind. World Barista Champion, Boram Um is on this week while trying to guess a coffee from….??

Listening: Philosopher and author Alain de Botton explores the origins of negative inner voices, why we struggle to connect with emotions, and the risks of intellectualizing emotional challenges. He shares insights on improving self-worth, navigating difficult relationships, and letting go of obsessive tendencies to foster personal growth and healing.

Brewing: A whole lot of espresso!

respond with a photo of your brew bar or get creative with an AI generated scene and we’ll feature and share in an upcoming week of BTD

Distance: Buy the Drip run club. Clocking some kilometers. Help us push a few more kilometers through this week?

Want to join us as we hit the road? Let’s connect on Strava! or, join our Whoop group - just respond to the email and let’s grind together!