Devlin Rice, a roaster by trade at New Harvest Coffee in Pawtucket, will be showing off his espresso-making skills in a Northeast competition.

You think you’ve got pressure? How would you like to be Devlin Rice as he prepares to compete this weekend in the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s Northeast Regional Barista Competition in Pittsburgh?

There he’ll have 15 minutes to prepare 12 perfect coffees including 4 espressos, 4 cappuccinos and 4 of his own espresso-based signature drinks with marzipan, orange zest, whipped cream and shaved dark chocolate blended into a dollop that dots the coffee just so.

Now maybe you’re thinking that your local coffee shop barista (an Italian expression for the barman who runs the espresso machine) can do that with his or her eyes shut. But how often are their drinks each smelled, swirled, sipped and surveyed by a team of six judges — four sensory ones who taste and two technical ones who look? And he has to do all this while expressing his passion for coffee, imparting knowledge about the beans he’s using and conveying all his charm. Oh, and he has to select background music as well.

It’s exhausting just watching him practice.

But he’s got something — this 24-year-old who lives in Pawtucket and works as a roaster for New Harvest Coffee, which supplies many of the best cafés in Rhode Island. Last year, his first in the competition, he placed 9th out of 26. He wants to make it to the finals this year in the hope he can compete in the nationals in Portland, Ore., and earn a spot in the world competition. The current title holder hails from Ireland.

So practice he does “before a mix of coffee folks, food and wine aficionados and hospitality gurus,” said New Harvest’s director of business development Gerra Harrigan, herself a judge at the competition (though she will recuse herself when Rice comes up to bat).

It’s a funny business this competition, but it reveals the passion America has for its coffee and how it is becoming ever more refined and demanding. The competition is also a way for artisan roasters like Pawtucket’s New Harvest to draw attention to the world of coffee.

“Our mission is to elevate coffee in Rhode Island,” said Harrigan.

“We’d like to see us a have a reputation like Seattle as a coffee capital,” said Rik Kleinfeldt, the owner of New Harvest Roasters and head roaster. He hopes Providence will host the regionals next year.

New Harvest doesn’t serve any coffee of its own but roasts it there at company headquarters in Pawtucket. Rice will probably be the only roaster competing, with other baristas coming from coffee shops. But Kleinfeldt said they do offer a barista-training program during which they instruct staff from the retail businesses that buy their coffee.

“It gets a 19-year-old student who has a job at a café more interested if he or she can learn where the product comes from and how it’s produced,” he said.

Whatever they are doing, it’s working. Sales are up 20 percent from last year.

Coffee has a language all its own which is part of the discussion as Rice practices in front of judges Todd Mackey, a manager and barista from Olga’s Cup & Saucer, and Eric Taylor, beverage director and manager of La Laiterie, as well as Kleinfeldt and Harrigan.

With the espresso drinks, they judge the crema, which is the layer of foam on top, for consistency and persistence. It should recover quickly when parted with a spoon. They will also taste for a syrupy smoothness and to see if the beans and the barista have combined to create a drink with a harmonious balance of sweet, acidic and bitter flavors.

He’s timed because if it takes 16 minutes instead of 15 for him to make his 12 drinks, he’s disqualified. Just a few seconds over and he’s penalized points.

Pittsburgh’s is one of 10 regional contests with the winner of each moving on to the U.S. Barista Competition, all in hope of bringing home coffee gold. There are expected to be 30 contestants with Rice the only one from Rhode Island.

Spending time with the other contestants is one of the attractions to Rice. It not only brings him out to the roasting venue but puts him with others who share his passion.

“It’s like ‘Look, there’s another person who’s freaking out about coffee,’ ” he said with a wide grin. “Knowing there is a peer group encourages you to focus and what you want and all the fun you can have,” Rice added.

“It creates a level of professionalism and makes people more serious,” said Kleinfeldt, who is very serious not just about coffee but also about fair trade with companies committed to selling products for which farmers around the globe are paid a fair price. He just returned from a coffee trek to South and Central America with that topic in mind.

The first stop was at Mesa de los Santos estate, outside of Bucaramanga, Colombia. Mesa is a well-established estate, with a long history of producing outstanding organic coffee while providing their workers with fair wages and access to health care and education.

It is also the farm that grows the Don Telmo Reserva coffee, a favorite coffee at New Harvest for several years and the one that Rice will be using at the competition.

Kleinfeldt also visited Honduras and the village of Lagunitas in the central highlands. There he was joined by the students and faculty of the Lafayette College Chapter of Engineers Without Borders.

“In contrast to Mesa de los Santos, the farming families of Lagunitas are at the very beginning of their journey towards producing great coffee,” he said.

The team consulted with the residents of the village on cultivating, harvesting, processing and marketing their green coffee.

It’s all part of Kleinfeldt’s philosophy that the coffee business is bigger and more important than one drink. But for Devlin Rice this weekend, 12 drinks will be weighing heavily on his mind.

gciampa@projo.com