Julieta Viola, SIBARIST CHAMPION tips & tricks!
Sometimes what you need is to be talented, not experienced. Julieta won the Spain Aeropress Championship in 2023 and has participated in the WAC in Australia using the SIBARIST FAST DISC 63 filters.
We are very happy to share this Champion interview with you, where you can find out the reasons of her choice and the setup advantages. We hope you enjoy the lecture and findings.
Thank you Julieta for your trust in our products and to share your tips and tricks to our community, you’ll be always a Sibarist Champion!
It will be great to have a brief personal description. A little bit of background…
My name is Julieta Viola Cañás, I’m from Argentina, but currently living in Barcelona, the city where I fell in love with coffee. Right now I work as a barista and Quality Control in Three Marks Coffee Roasters. I also train our clients so they can extract our coffees the best way.
I love connecting the different aspects of the coffee chain from the roastery to the coffee shop. I’m constantly learning and improving my skills which is something I really enjoy.
I always liked drinking coffee, but it made me very sick, and the doctors prohibited it. But then I found out about specialty coffee, and started trying it and found out I did not feel bad at all after it… it was like discovering a new amazing world.
My first job here in Barcelona was at a bakery shop where we served coffee, and I found out I loved it when someone asked for coffee, and wanted to do it right away. That’s when I first thought maybe coffee was not only something to enjoy drinking for me, and that It could be something else… it became a passion.
A few months later I did a one week training with who I consider a sensory master, Kim Ossenblok, where I learned about cuppings, different coffee profiles and to really understand the flavours. It was really a before/after my career. Since then I never stopped learning and each time I get more submerged in this amazing world, getting to the chemistry of it and the more nerdy parts.
Why did you join the Aeropress championship?
I went to the 2022 Catalunya Aeropress Championship as a spectator and I found it a very interesting thing, discovering a new world I didn’t knew existed. That day I left the place knowing I wanted to participate the next year. And so I did. I got classified in the regional and got to compete in the Spain National. It was such an amazing experience.
How did you face the championship? Routine? Important thinks to be considered or not?
I had a few training hours for the regional of Catalunya with the competition coffee I got a few days before, until I found the recipe I enjoyed the best. I couldn’t do the same for the Spain championship because it was the day after the regional, and I was given the coffee that night. So I just tried it a few times, the same recipe of the regional and I only adjusted the grind. Luckily that recipe took me far.
Something that helped me was hearing different opinions of the coffees I brewed. A few training sessions I did at work, and I had my colleagues trying the different recipes and hearing what they thought of them. That was really valuable for me, because it was super easy when we all were on the same page choosing the same cup.
“SIBARIST gave me very sweet cups, super round, and I feel it also helped take the bitterness and dryness of the coffees away”
During the championship, the most important thing was staying calm myself, because I know me when I get nervous and I cannot coordinate moves. Also support. I had a lot of people cheering for me both in the regional and national, and it was something I consider fundamental. You really need a hug after going through that amount of “pressure” to say it somehow… I participated with the idea of enjoying the whole festival, but when I found myself going through rounds, I really felt I had to give my best, because I knew I had a shot. And hugs from my dear ones gave me a lot of energy for the next rounds.
Also staying well hydrated and have a good sleep the day after is super important. And eating well, of course.
What do you feel once you are “on the stage” at the moment of the competition?
It was a mix of adrenaline, happiness and being calm. Quite a strange mix, I know. But all I wanted was to enjoy the event. And so I did. And every time I got my cup chosen, I felt so grateful and proud of how far I got since I first started with coffee. And having all the people that supported me and celebrated my achievements was amazing. I’m very grateful for them.
How is the experience of being in Australia in the finals?
Australia was crazy. It was an out of this world experience. Sometimes I was standing there and it was hard to believe what I was living; surrounded by all coffee freaks like me, talking about extraction percentages, sharing recipes, trying different extraction methods… going to visit coffee shops together and visit the wonderful city Melbourne is… I took back with me a lot of new contacts and amazing people I will remember forever.
And the part of being in a world championship! Wow. If someone told me one year ago I was going to live all this… I think I wouldn’t believe it.
Why you chose the Sibarist filters and which one?
When I was doing my first training for the regional, one of the things I did was to brew the same recipe twice but one with Aeropress regular filters, and other with Sibarist filters. The difference was huge.
Sibarist gave me very sweet cups, super round, and I feel it also helped take the bitterness and dryness of the coffees away. But the biggest difference was the coffee ended up being super clean next to the one brewed with the standard Aeropress filters. So after seeing that, I was sure I was going to compete with Sibarist in the whole championship.
What’s your recipe and technique? Did you used the same in all the competition phases?
My recipe is quite standard, nothing fancy or complicated. I wanted to stick to the recipe I’d brew at home in the morning. This way I felt more confident and calm when competing. I used approximately the same recipe for the regional, national and world championship, only adjusting grind setting, temperature and infusion time.
The recipe that got me in the first place in the Spain Championship, for a Kenyan washed, varieties SL28 & SL34 from the producers of Kanyenyaini at 1800masl, roasted by Familia Osorio here in Barcelona was:
Brewer position: inverted
Filter: 2 paper filters (Sibarist fast)
15grams of coffee grinded at 26 clicks of Comandante grinder
Water: 220 grams total. I used water from Three Marks coffee Roastery & coffee shop, mixed (119ppm)
- Preheat water at 85degrees
- Preinfusion: 65grams of water, blooming 30seconds. Stirr 5 times.
- Infusion: add 115 more grams of water and let infuse for 40 seconds
- Close the brewer with the cap and filters and invert it into a jug
- Press for 30 seconds
- Bypass: add 40g of water into the already filtered coffee
- Mix, mix, mix & cool down a little bit.
- Enjoy!
The final result was a very clean and super sweet cup.
What would you recommend to people who want to participate in the Aeropress Championship?
DO IT!
I’m very happy and grateful I got myself in the competition. I regretted a little bit not doing it the season before, so this year I was super sure I was going to do it: I even told my employees on my first interview I was going to ask for the day off when the Catalunya regional was going to take place.
I’d recommend putting the focus on enjoying the championship. I saw a lot of people being so nervous they couldn’t even talk, and that must not be nice… of course we all want to win when participating in something like this, that’s why we do it. But when you’re calm and enjoying the moment, you’re already winning, and then if you get the first place you’ve won twice.
Muchas Gracias!!