Top coffee-maker Conor will grind it out for world title tilt
Conor Archbold with Brock Lewis, owner of Badger and Dodo Coffee
A GRAIGUECULLEN man is set to represent the county on the world coffee stage later this month. Conor Archbold recently won the Irish Aeropress Championships and will now represent Ireland at the world championships in Lisbon.
Conor started his coffee career as a teen, working in local cafés, something he still does casually.
“My actual job is as a microbiologist in MSD, but I don’t want to lose the talent so I do some shifts,” he told The Nationalist.
“I went to the Dublin Barista School and it took off from then. I had a little bit of a caffeine addiction” he joked. “I’ve been competing as a barista for the last couple of years. I thought this was a fun competition. I saw it was coming up and thankfully the stars aligned" he said, adding that he was thrilled to win.
“There was a bit of imposter syndrome. I’ve won a few small competitions around Ireland, but never anything to this equivalent. Seeing all the other national champs pop up on social media made me realise this is big, this is real,” he said.
Conor’s sights are now firmly set on the world competition.
“64 countries will be represented, with three people brewing the same kind of coffee at any given time. For this competition, we use an Aeropress-type brewer, which is just a fancy French press, for want of a better word. We can pick our grind size, how much coffee we use, how much water, the type of water – so how much magnesium, calcium and so on is in the water. You brew it and it’s brought to a selection of judges, who choose the one they like the most and that’s how you get through to the next round,” he explained.
Conor will fly to the Portuguese capital tomorrow, Wednesday, ahead of the competition on Friday and Saturday.
“By Saturday evening we’ll know if I’m the world champ or not. I’ll let the coffee speak for itself,” he said.
