French Press Coffee Roasters are now the world champions of espresso after taking the top prize at the Golden Bean World Series in Guatemala.
The company with locations in Parksville and Qualicum Beach took the gold for its Colombian "co-ferment", with cherry as its base.
Owner Jeremy Perkins says he figures the judges awarded his coffee the gold on account of its balance of cherry, almond, tropic fruit flavour and a touch of chocolate, but he can't be sure since when he spoke to the PQB News, the judges comments were not yet posted online.
"It's not necessarily about the medal, for me, it's more that somebody says, yeah, you've done a good job with that coffee," Perkins said. "I don't naturally have a boss because I'm self employed. It makes me feel that there's somebody overseeing my work."
The 2025 Golden Bean World Series was held in Antigua, Guatemala, from Feb. 17 to Feb. 20. The competition is open to anyone who has won a gold or silver at a regional championship, such as Golden Bean Americas or Golden Bean Asia.
Techniques have advanced quite fast in the specialty coffee world, including the co-ferment process Perkins' winning coffee used. A co-ferment involves anaerobically fermenting (without air) to enhance the inherent properties of the coffee with an additional ingredient, according to Perkins.
"In this particular instance, they've added cherry powder to it, ground up cherries, to the co-fermenting cherries," he said. "Then they've left this for a period of time. It could be 48 hours, 72 hours. Then they've dried it naturally and taken the cherry off, and there you’ve got the coffee."
This year he was surprised see "French Press Coffee Roasters - U.S.A" displayed on the screen when his coffee was awarded the gold medal, particularly "galling" given the recent trade friction between Canada and the U.S.
"What you want to see is 'Canada' up there in big letters on the stage," he said. "They apologized as I was walking on stage."
Perkins has travelled to numerous countries for different coffee events, including Ethiopia, Honduras and the U.S.
He has been entering the Golden Bean competitions for several years, and nabbed a gold medal at the 2019 Americas event in Nashville. Perkins said things have advanced so far that if he entered that same prize-winning Ethiopian blend today, it would not win.
Perkins has also travelled abroad on trade missions, including a trip to Honduras last year to strengthen ties between the two countries. He said it was interesting to speak with farmers, taste the coffee and discuss the potential of importing their product into Canada.
"Sometimes we can taste where there have been some issues with the growing or the processing or the keeping of it," Perkins added. "Sometimes you can, you know, taste some sort of some faults in the coffee. And so we can advise about that, essentially, and advice about the market in Canada."
He's learned a lot after being in specialty coffee for 24 years, and got his start in the UK with coffee shops and roasting coffee. Perkins has also judged barista championships in the UK and Canada.
"You just learn along the way," he said.
