Cup North 2015: "The View of a Sommelier" | Laurent Richet

For Tamper Tantrum, 2015 was all about honing all of the really interesting and successful things we’d done in the past—back when TT was a side project—and making it stronger and better as we grew into a stand-alone venture. Nowhere is this more visible than 2015’s event in partnership with Cup North, where we brought some new things to the table (*cough*, coffee throwing) as well as reprising some older ideas that really struck a chord in previous years.

Many of us openly acknowledge, in a way that is ironically true to form, that our community often functions as a bit of an echo chamber. In the interest of bringing new ideas to the table, we returned to an old goal of ours from way back in 2012—to include, where possible, one speaker from a different industry that had a some overlap with our own. It was with great pleasure and excitement that we were able to bring Master Sommelier and Crew Cup recipient, Laurent Richet of Restaurant Sat Bains with Rooms to speak at 2015’s Cup North event.

Whilst there are disagreements as to whether or not it is a worthwhile exercise to emulate other industries exactly*, there are definitely some questions to be asked and answered when looking at the comparative success of the wine industry in raising awareness of their product with the average consumer. In his talk, Laurent lays the groundwork for a better understanding of the similarities and differences between the wine and coffee industries, explains the structure of wine’s sensory- and service-based accreditations, and explains the framework sommeliers use to taste and evaluate wine before offering some thoughts on what we, as coffee professionals, can do to achieve better consumer awareness.

*See Mat North’s 2015 Cup North talk for a strong argument against employing other industries’ paradigms.

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Growing up in the Loire Valley, Laurent Richet attended the catering college in Saumur where he passed his Sommelier exam. After finishing his exams, Richet went on to work at some prestigious hotels including ‘La Reserve de Beaulieu’ in Beaulieu sur Mer, ‘The Hotel de Paris’ in Monaco, ‘Celtic Manor Resort’ in South Wales, ‘The Breakers Resort’ in Florida, USA, ‘Hotel TerraVina’ in the New Forest and now Restaurant Sat Bains with rooms in Nottingham.

During his career, Laurent has had the pleasure of working with incredibly talented and knowledgeable people who have motivated him in wanting to be the best he can be. All of his hard work paid off in 2010 when he won the Gastronomy Team of the Year competition and 4 years after starting the Master Sommelier, passed its final level, also gaining the Crew Cup.