Best of El Salvador 2017: Judges profile
Oliver James, Tattooed Sailor Coffee Roasters/Caffiend
Oliver James is a co-owner and founder of Caffiend and Tattooed Sailor Coffee Roasters in Cairns, Australia. He will be joining Project Origin at the Best of El Salvador Auction, 2017 as an Experienced Judge. We caught up with him to talk about coffee, his career and origin travels before he makes his trip to Central America.
How long have you worked in coffee for?
Since I was 9 years old, so I guess that’s about 21 years now! My dad had restaurant in Southern Highlands and when I’d go down every third weekend to visit, I’d stand on a milk crate so I was able to reach the coffee machine and make coffee. Of course, that was the late 80’s and early 90’s, so the style of coffee was big, frothy, ‘snow dome’ cappuccinos. And I made a damn good one!
What do you do at Tattooed Sailor?
Most of the roasting is done by my business partner, Ian. He’s ex-navy and didn’t actually join the team until a while down the track – he watched our progress at the cafe, Caffiend, and was doing his own roasting at home on a little home roaster…eventually it just kind of happened! I do some roasting as well, but leave the bulk up to Ian. When we first started, we had a 5kg roaster Probat that I loved. It was a bit of an older model and wasn’t as technologically advanced as the newer models…but I know a bit about metal quality from my dad’s blacksmithing days, and the metal quality on the Probate was amazing. With a few modern touches, it was perfect.
What drew you to coffee and working with it?
When I was a kid working with my dad, we would drive to Sydney to buy coffee directly from an Italian family, who roasted themselves. They would roll up the garage door to the unit they roasted in and the smell of roasting coffee would waft out. I’d sit in the car and wind down the window, loving the smell. I guess I’ve always had coffee in my veins; I’ve tried a few different jobs over the years, but I always seem to be drawn back to it. And for good reason, I love it!
What is your favourite part of the industry?
I suppose it’s that in the entire industry, from the farm to cafes, there is a sense of inclusiveness and sharing that you don’t often see with other industries. There’s a special attitude in specialty coffee…actually, I had it recently in Cairns; we get a lot of tourists coming through, and just the other week we had a girl from the Czech Republic come in for a coffee. We talked for a minute about her shop back home and before you knew it, she was behind the machine with me, pulling shots! Coffee breeds this culture of sharing, pushing boundaries, broadening what we can learn and challenging what we know.
How did you get involved working with Project Origin?
Well, Project Origin is of course founded by Sasa Sestic. I know Sasa through judging competitions and had known the team for a little while. While judging in Melbourne in 2015, I found myself thrown onto the finals panel for the National Barista Competition; I felt really unprepared and a little overwhelmed. Fortunately, all of the finalists came from cafes and roasters that I knew well and had drunk many times, so I was able to align myself with their style and understand the performances. Sasa competed and won and I guess it was there that we first formed a close relationship.
And how was it judging Sasa?
Well he won, so obviously he did well [laughs]. If I’m honest, I actually scored him the lowest out of the four sensory judges! For that reason, after the competition he approached me and asked how he could improve. From there he kind of kept me updated, called me when he found the perfect ingredient for his signature drink and I was actually lucky enough to taste his coffees in Canberra before he went to the World Barista Championship in Seattle.
Will the Best of El Salvador Auction be your first origin trip?
I have actually already travelled to Ethiopia on an origin trip. I did this because I wanted to go to the origin of coffee to begin my origin journey, right back to where coffee originated. That was an amazing trip and I was lucky enough to be hosted and shown around by some people doing some really wonderful stuff over there. I have also been to coffee farms in the Australia Atherton tablelands; I really think that Australian coffee has a lot of potential and there’s a lot of work we can do there. El Salvador will be my second overseas origin trip and I can’t wait to see what we find there.
Do you have a favourite coffee/varietal/coffee producing country?
It’s hard to pick, but I’d have to say that Ethiopia is probably my favourite coffee country (so far). Several years ago Nolan at Proud Mary in Melbourne roasted heaps of Ethiopian that blew me away. It could have been my palette at the time, or just the fact that I had never experienced something like that, but it still stands out in my mind as an amazing experience. Going to Ethiopia reinforced my love of the country, the people and the coffee. As a coffee destination, Ethiopia is still so unexplored and….raw.
Is there anything in particular you will be looking for in El Salvador?
I like to travel without expectation – my travelling is really about building friendships and solidifying relationships. I think the Project Origin auctions are exactly about this, so I’m very excited for the trip. Food is also a big part of my travel, so I’m excited to see what is waiting there for me to try. I deliberately haven’t done much research on the country, I tend not to. It makes it really rewarding, travelling without expectations or preconceived ideas. I usually start my coffee courses with a segment on expectations, namely how It’s important for us and the ways in which we perceive and grade coffee is about expectation. I want to go to El Salvador and have my version of it.
