My Journey to Worlds: A Photographer’s Story

When I boarded the airplane to Melbourne, Australia and started my travel to the World Coffee Competitions, I had no idea how the following week would play out. I was that wild mix of excited and nervous that you feel in moments where you know everything is about to change. I had been counting down the days to this trip for six months, and suddenly it was here. 

I arrived in Australia loaded down with a backpack full of camera gear, eager to re-connect with my co-workers after we had all endured our own journeys of over thirty hours of travel. Over the first few days, as we all acclimated to jetlag by embarking on a grand tour of Melbourne’s favorite cafes and brunch spots, I often caught myself reflecting on the gravity of how unbelievable it felt to be in the position where I found myself. I had been flown across the world to document the US Barista & Brewers Cup Champions (Morgan Eckroth and Elika Liftee, both co-workers of mine from Onyx) as they competed for a World Championship title. This was a dream opportunity made infinitely more significant by the fact that these two competitors were not only incredible people and respected co-workers, but also friends. 

Morgan’s final run through with coach Andrea Allen at Onyx HQ during the last Arkansas visit before Melbourne

Elika Liftee’s winning performance in the 2022 U.S. Brewers Cup in Boston

I had the honor of documenting both Morgan and Elika as they secured US Championship victories in Boston back in April, and then in July I traveled with them to Inmacaulada, the incredible coffee farm in Colombia where they sourced their competition coffees. I had spent months watching these two as they poured themselves into their scripts, their workflow practices, and of course their coffees. I had enjoyed seeing them train with the Onyx leadership team and witnessing the relationships that were formed and strengthened as everyone pushed forward with a singular focus – excellence.

Morgan’s Training at HQ (March - September 2022)

Scenes from Inmacaulada (July 2022)

Practicing for Worlds in Melbourne

After a few final days of practice and preparation, it was finally time for the first day of competition. There was this incredible sense that this was their time, that there was a moment upon them that was ready to be seized. As I thought about this, I couldn’t help but feel moved by the thought that my own story had led me to this moment as well, just the same as my friends’ had led them. This adventure was not only theirs, it had also become mine as well. I didn’t need to be a competitor on the world stage. I was in the exact place I needed and wanted to be – behind the camera, doing the thing I love most with people who mean the world to me.

Throughout the entire Melbourne trip, there was a heavy thematic emphasis on the significance and impact of story. One of the most beautiful things about gathering with people in the specialty coffee industry is getting to hear the different stories from people around the world who are bound together with shared passion despite both culture difference and geographical distance. Every person attending this event, whether competitor, coach, judge, coffee producer, industry professional, or volunteer was coming there with shared purpose – to celebrate a love of coffee and to pursue and honor excellence in the industry. There is this sense that we all have a place in this community, and that it is our collective efforts and perspectives that make this industry what it is today. It’s humbling to consider that I was not an outsider in this event, but someone caught right in the very center of the industry with a front row seat to not only observe the competition, but also to play a part in helping to document it for the rest of the world. It felt like my entire creative journey up to this point led me to this moment, and it was beautiful.

My Coffee Story

My love of coffee and my love of photography, documentation, and storytelling emerged early in my life in such a conjoined fashion that it is nearly impossible for me to consider them separately. I have vivid memories from my early teenage years of sitting in various coffee shops, happily caught up in everything from the smells and the sounds to the energy of the people. Starting early in middle school and continuing ever more increasingly throughout high school, cafes became the most common setting for my own emergence of self. They are where I would think, where I would work, where I would build community, and where I would spend countless hours taking and editing photographs for the yearbook as editor-in-chief, for my own personal creative projects, and eventually for hire as I launched into freelance photography at only 15 years old, now half a lifetime ago.

When I moved to Northwest Arkansas for college, my first two priorities were to find a community and to find meaningful work, and coffee was able to provide both for me. I proceeded to show up every single day at a cafe near my house asking if they were hiring until they finally decided it would be better to say yes than to have a customer walking around picking up dishes and tiding the entire cafe every day while bugging the baristas with questions about when the manager would be in next. I was relentless because I knew where I wanted to be plugged in, working with coffee in a cafe while trying to figure out how on earth I would be able to make an actual living for myself chasing a career in photography and storytelling. 

Film photographs developed in my first semester of Darkroom Photography

After college and three years of working as a barista and a freelance creative, I moved into the corporate marketing world in an effort to choose the financially responsible path to adulthood, but I couldn’t escape the pull to be back in the world of coffee. I had to drive 45 minutes from my house to my corporate office every morning, but I would spend minimal time in my office, instead taking liberal freedom to work remotely from the cafe down the street. Sitting in a coffee shop next to a window overlooking downtown with a coffee and my laptop made the corporate world bearable for a season.

During my time at this corporate job, I started dating my now-husband Jesse, who was in the early years of growing his custom furniture business and who was in the process of building out a cafe for Onyx Coffee Lab in Downtown Bentonville. It didn’t take long for me to get pulled into that world, and I found myself leaving my corporate job to instead join Jesse in designing and building furniture and interiors for Onyx and numerous other cafes, restaurants, and businesses. During that time, I took my love of documentation and storytelling and learned how to use those interests to grow a brand, create content, and manage social media. In a matter of just a few years we had grown a highly regarded brand that showed no signs of ever slowing down. As the company got bigger and bigger, I was pulled further and further away from my creative roots and from the work I really enjoyed doing. When I finally came to terms with the fact that I needed to be done with that season in my life, my next opportunity was unexpectedly closer and more perfect than I could have ever orchestrated for myself.

Onyx Coffee Lab in Downtown Bentonville

One of my favorite furniture pieces made for Onyx in Downtown Bentonville

Onyx Coffee Lab HQ in Downtown Rogers

After multiple years of thought, in December of 2021 I made the difficult decision to step away from the business Jesse and I had grown together. I was unmistakably certain that I needed to return to my creative roots and lean into my passion for documentation and storytelling, so I designed a website for myself promoting that I would be stepping into freelance creative work full time. The very hour that I planned to launch the website, I got a call from Jesse saying that Onyx was looking to hire a Director of Social Media, and to make a long story short, let’s just say that I never launched that website I made for myself. I now have the opportunity to work every day in a space that I helped bring to life.

Taking the leap to work as the Director of Social Media and as a photographer for Onyx was a life change that catapulted me into a world that felt like it had been tailored for me to fit right in. All of the passions and skills that I had built over the years had a place (even the passions that felt random and the skills that I earned through great suffering), and I was amazed to find that there were people who needed exactly what I was able to bring to the table. I believe that is one way you can know if you are in alignment with your purpose – to be in the right spot at the right time in a way that allows you to make an impact and to be able to take on a challenge that stretches you and also finds you chomping at the bit to keep going. 

Over the course of the World Coffee Competitions, I took more photos than I’ll ever be able to use or share. I captured practice rounds, performances, reactions, and scenes from the city. I also shared in a million undocumented memories that I will hold close to my heart for a lifetime. Over the course of the last three days of my trip, I watched both Elika and Morgan win World Champion Runner Up titles – an achievement that quite frankly has me in awe of the talent and mastery that they both possess. It’s deeply meaningful to me that my work there will be able to serve as tool to help them remember this season. I am so grateful for this both as a professional experience and as a personal experience that I walked through with my friends. It’s amazing to me that we now all have this as a part of our story, as a chapter that represents all that is possible with determination, effort, and a great team.

Morgan Eckroth, 2022 World Barista Champion Runner Up

Proof that I was actually there and not just making all this up. (Also, fun fact – I made those stands for Morgan’s presentation)

As I reflect on the road I traveled to get to Worlds, I am able to appreciate that my story is one that has intertwined passion and creativity and purpose and experience and found them all merging and giving way to a moment in my career that surpasses my wildest hopes, all the while inviting me to dream bigger and recognize that I am still at the beginning. What an adventure this journey to Worlds has been. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Morgan Eckroth, World Barista Champion Runner Up & Elika Liftee, World Brewers Cup Champion Runner Up

The Onyx Team at The World Coffee Championships in Melbourne, Australia | September 2022