I've experienced my greatest growth in
competition. This whole process of creating a
routine really forces you as a competitor to
dive into coffee topics that maybe you didn't
know anything about.
And that's something that I really, really
enjoy and that personal growth is what I'm
chasing again this year.
My name is Morgan Eckroth, I am 24 years
old and I am the 2022 US Barista Champion.
I didn't grow up drinking coffee at all.
The first kind of interaction I had with
coffee was when I was 16 .
I got my driver's license on my birthday, and I had
this moment where I was like, I'm gonna-- I'm
gonna like, go get coffee before I go back
to school. And it's going to be very cool and
I'll walk in with, like, keys and a cup and it's
going to be great. And that was the--
essentially the beginning of the end.
I remember walking into my very first shift and I
kind of had this moment of doubt of like,
is working here going to ruin this very special
place, you know, that I've kind of grown
connected to over the years?
And it did the exact opposite. It was a space
that I learned to love from the barista side as
well as the customer side. And that was
something I think was very, very special to
experience so early on.
The first, I think, coffee viral video that I
did was one of me very simply pouring latte art.
It was a video I would have posted on Instagram,
but it got like millions of views on TikTok and it
sparked a thought of like, what else can I
share about this job that people might not know?
And then the pandemic happened.
And very quickly I was not working.
It was my first time in pretty much all of my,
like, working career at that point that I was
fully unemployed because hospitality was down, for
lack of a better word. And so I had this
realization of like, oh, this has to be my job
right now. And so that was when I started taking
kind of like MorganDrinksCoffee very seriously.
It was kind of out of necessity at the time
I have essentially three income streams nowadays.
So I have MorganDrinksCoffee, which
I am salaried to.
Like I just get a paycheck from it every
month. I also work for Onyx Coffee Lab as a
content marketing specialist. I do that a
bit under full time hours.
And then I still work as a barista.
It's part time hours for sure, and it's hourly wage.
I happened to make it to nationals that year,
which was a shock.
I think I squeaked in at like number 18 in
qualifiers, which is-- there's only 18 people
that qualify. And it was like this, like, itch
that started of just like realizing that I
loved this combination of competition and coffee
and like crafting routine just so much.
You as a competitor are serving an espresso
course. You're serving a milk course, which is
just milk and espresso.
And then you have a signature beverage and
that's kind of like your showstopper. And you
have, like, full creativity with that beverage.
And then while you're doing that,
if that's not complicated enough,
you also have two tech judges behind you.
And so those are the people that are hovering
around with their clipboards. They're
getting really, really close to you because they
are watching for things like technique.
They're looking for consistency in your
workflow. I like to pick my theme and my script
first and then find a coffee that kind of
matches that. You then have to purchase the
coffee. You have to wait for it to come into the
country. You have to roast it.
That's a whole long process and so getting
that ball rolling as quickly as possible is
very important. And then comes the, like, creation
of drinks and rehearsing. For me, that
process usually takes a couple of weeks, but by
the end of it you could, like, be like whacking me
and I could still be like going off of my
routine and not pausing, you know?
It needs to be like that tuned in.
I had two months between finding out that I was
competing and being on that stage, which is not
a lot. Like it sounds like a sizable amount,
but from sourcing coffees to scripting to
practicing, it's-- it's really, really tight.
My theme at the USBC was really talking about how
we can use digital tools to kind of expand the
world of coffee.
It's now through the Internet,
through digital media and videos that we're
able to step into the homes of those who will
drive this industry forward.
Competition is expensive.
That is kind of a-- a fact of the game.
I think, for the Boston competition in 2022,
I want to say that was-- that was probably around $2,500 to
$3,000 for just the cost of travel and then also
staying there for a couple days.
And then we have to talk about wares because
that's like a whole other part of this competition.
That is cups, it's WDT tools,
it's tamps, it's mats, it's like everything you
use in practice.
And I think that last year-- that was probably
around $1,000 to $1,500 just to like invest in
everything that I used on stage.
I probably spent a couple hundred dollars
out of my own pocket as well, just on like
coffees that I could use during practice that
weren't my competition coffee and also milk for
practice. And then all the different ingredients
that I used.
This coffee has a low acidity and complex sugar
development that allows us to experience flavors
that are familiar outside of the context of coffee.
And I was the very last competitor of the day, so
I was the final person in the finals.
And so it was kind of this moment of like,
we're just going to, like, close out the show.
I was like, we're just going to have like a
party up here. And so that was really awesome.
Our first place winner and
the 2022 Barista Champion,
moving on to Melbourne,
is Morgan Eckroth.
I kind of just kept waiting for them to call
me and be like, "We got it wrong.
We need you to give the trophy back.
Like, you're not actually the champion." And I
really don't think it was until the world
competition that I allowed myself to kind of
recognize that, I was like, "Okay, I did that."
The $4,000 did not last very long, especially
with the fact that we needed to travel to
Australia for the competition, which is
basically as far away as you can get.
Walking out of WBC last year, I for a couple
weeks was like, "All right, that was it.
Like, you're not competing anymore.
Like you did it.
Good job. You can check out now." And that
lasted, I think for about 2 to 3 weeks.
And then that like itch came back where I was
like, you can do better than that.
I want to compete because I have more that
I want to say on the stage. It's a lot of
excitement, it's a lot of nerves, but I'm back
in kind of the competition headset, so
I'm kind of putting my blinders on and I'm
trying not to pay attention to anything
else around me. It's really just me and this
routine and I'm just going to work on making
it as good as possible.