A Shot in the Dark, Middle East 2022.

A Shot in the Dark, Middle East  - the first ever roasting competition in the Middle East - came to a stunning conclusion at the DMMC Coffee Center, Dubai yesterday, with Emmanuel Velora of Gold Box Roastery taking the top honours!

Runner Up: Empire Coffee, Bharath Chandagalu Govindanayaka

Third Place: Archers, Kemal Risyad

What an incredible week.

To each of the founding roasters of this competition that will hopefully grow a rich culture in the region for many years to come, we are grateful to you for entrusting us with your roasts.

To the panel of judges. Mike Mac Donald, Ginny Tan, Sherryl Napit, Maria Barquin and Andrew Nicholson. Wow. The dedication you showed in treating each coffee with the utmost respect was inspiring. The beauty of this competition is the blind tasting and you truly gave your all with each coffee.

Thank you to all our amazing partners on this project, there are a lot of moving parts and without support from these amazing businesses we could not have held this competition. We are eternally grateful and excited for the future!

To our hosts at the DMCC Coffee Centre, what a privilege to have this as the home of the first ever roasting competition in the Middle East. The entire team went above and beyond to make this competition a success.

Thank you to Ahmed Bin Sulayem, CEO of DMCC and Saeed Alsuwaidi, Director Agri Commodities for being there for the whole day to celebrate coffee! And thank you to the Team on the ground, Mako, Rejoice, Richell, Nawal and Samer who ran everything so smoothly.

Thank you to everyone who came through for the day to learn together and network and build community. We are already planning on how to make this experience more interactive next year!

This was an incredible start to a hopefully long tradition. 

Please click on the first image to open the gallery below (otherwise the captions looks strange!)