Five Senses Coffee Blog

Day two at the Australian Barista Champs

Ben Bicknell in his signature pose

As one can imagine, there was excitement as well as disappointment today as day two of the 2011 Detpak Australian Barista Championships came to an end in the Gold Coast. The semi finals in the Barista category brought twelve competitors down to six with the remaining participants facing-off again tomorrow for a chance at not only the national title, but also a trip to Bogota for the World Championships later this year.

The baristas (and their winning blends) who will appear in the finals on Sunday:

Craig Simon – Two El Salvadorian Finca El Manzana crops that were harvested from the same plot, on the same day, one wet processed and the other dry.

Ron Ngo – Kenyan Fairview Estate Peaberry and Brazilian San Antonio Estate (70/30 respectively).

Will Priestley – Brazilian pulp natural Santa Elena and a washed El Salvadorian from El Retiro.

Jean Paul Sutton – “The Ultimate Blend” of Sumatran, Guatemalan and Kenyan (50/40/10 respectively).

Matt Perger – Guatemalan Santa Clara and Brazilian Santa Elina.

Erin Sampson – A Panamanian and Ethiopian Nikesse.

Newcomer Ron Ngo from Western Australia won the judges over with his six-leaf tulip latte art and predominantly Kenyan blend, opting for a riskier high-acid espresso versus the safer heavy and smooth blends.

Also taking place today were the open heats of the Latte Art and Cupping categories of the competition. The final heats tomorrow will consist of the five previously determined state champions, as well as the one additional competitor that finished first in their respective repechage heat today. Joining the state champs in the Cupping category is Ben Bicknell from Victoria, and in the Latte Art category is South Australia’s Daniel Freer.

World Barista Championship contenders from across the globe had eyes on Australia today as our 2011 National Championship is the first in the world to implement the new WBC Latte Art Competition rules established in December. New procedures outline two days of compliance with day one consisting of the Bar Component and day two affectionately referred to as the Wheel of Doom. For more information on the new WLAC regulations, visit http://worldbaristachampionship.com/downloads/ and click on Summary of Changes.

With competitors associated with 5 Senses represented in each category of tomorrow’s finals, we are signing off from day two proud, grateful and eager for Sunday’s events.

All the action from day one at the Australian Barista Champs

Ronald Ngo from CNR in Northbridge, Western Australia, today competed in the open heats of the 2011 Detpak Australian Barista Championship and has won a place in tomorrow's semi final.

The first round of open heats has concluded for the 2011 Detpak Australian Barista Championship with Ronald Ngo from CNR making it through to the semi finals. Today, eleven competitors competed in the Barista category with the following top five finishers (in no particular order) all advancing to tomorrow’s semi finals: Scott Luengen, Erin Sampson, Matt Perger, Craig Simon and Ronald Ngo.

These honourable mentions will match up tomorrow against the nation’s most recent Barista State Champions. Tomorrow a total of eleven Barista competitors will compete for one of six places in the finals on Sunday. Saturday will also see repechage heats of the Cupping and Latte Art categories, both of which will also host its finalists on Sunday.

Today’s event was emceed by Ross Quail and David Makin and drew a large crowd of family, friends and patrons from the Gold Coast Food and Wine Show where the event was held.

There was plenty of pressure for competitors today and if you are new to barista competitions and that means nothing to you, novices can at least appreciate the noticeable amount of time and money that one must part with in order to make it to the top of the Barista category. This is a real competition with pressures and disappointments, and while newcomers might be inclined to take notes on ideas for a funky coffee drink, veteran bystanders might see things a bit differently.

Competitors this year could all have been champs a few years back, as the level of competition has continued to rise, participants are forced to extensively know all facets of their coffee.

With day one of the 2011 Detpak Australian Barista Championship now behind us, not to mention sweetened by a cameo by Reg Barber, it’s time to wash the cups, polish the silver, and gear up for day two.

Caleb wins Vic Barista Comp

Caleb Podhazcky goes back to back winning the 2011 Victorian Barista Comp at the St Kilda Town Hall Auditorium.

This years field was the largest in many years with 17 competitors battling it out, including a few seasoned competitors such as Will Priestly and Erin Sampson (both Australian Latte Art champions).

The spread at the top of the pool was very tight with only 3 points separating Caleb and Matt Perger (1st and 2nd place).

Barista Comp results:
1st – Caleb Podhazcky (5 Senses)
2nd – Matt Perger
3rd – Erin Sampson
4th – Will Priestly
5th – Craig Simon
6th – Simon James

Latte Art results:
1st – Shin Kiru (Cafenatics Coffee)
2nd – Masahiro Onishi (The Premises)
3rd – Kirby Berlin (Maling Room)

Cupping results:
1st – Luca Costanza
2nd – Kang Byoung-Woo (BW)
3rd – Remy Shpayzer

Caleb Podhazcky wins Vic Barista Comp

Small World

I’m in Montreal having crepes and coffee at Cafe Veritas and I’m trying to figure out where I recognise the barista behind the bar, just as Sam the owner introduces me to Jean Pierre Nyamabumba, the first Rwandan barista champ to represent in the WBC. Ben and I watched his 2009 performance in Atlanta and I recently visited cafe bourbon in Kigali where he used to work before moving to Canada. Sounds like he’s fitting right into Quebec with his fluent French and English. Here’s a barista who is really connected with the processes at origin and also one who was roasting and judging at the first Rwandan COE in 2008. We tasted lots of coffees and the talk was around sweetness, body and acidity and of course potato. It’s interesting to see the transition, baristas in Rwandan and Montreal speaking a very similar language, literally!

Jen and Jean Pierre

Qld Latte Art Champion Announced

After a sensational morning of competition the latte art winner was announced:

1st: Scott Luengen – Dandelion and Driftwood
2nd: Josh Russell – Cup Coffee
3rd: Jason Smith – Coffee Dominion

2011 Qld Latte art results: 1st-Scott (left), 2nd-Josh (centre), 3rd-Jason (right)

UAE Barista Champion Announced

After judging espresso after espresso and consuming signature drinks combined with ingredients as varied as jasmine flowers to ginger, the judging panel at the final round of competitions have declared Raja Muthusamy as the new UAE Barista Champion!

The results are:
1st – Raja Muthusamy
2nd – Dada Kalander Noor
3rd – Romeo Perello
4th – Kushal Balami
5th – Almas Ahmad
6th – Elavarasan Pandiyan

All of the competitors did an outstanding job and you could definitely see that the level of coffee knowledge had risen from the previous year. For his espresso and cappuccino rounds, Raja presented to the judges a single origin Mexican coffee which he had roasted himself and for his signature drink combined this with a Colombian single origin syphon, almond milk, jaggery (palm sugar) and cocoa.

Originally from India, Raja has overcome some unique hurdles in his lead up to his win – with three years under his belt in the specialty coffee industry, he still finds it understandably difficult to convey to his mother in his home town of 250 people exactly what it is he does every day. For me, the path Raja and many of the other competitors took gave a whole new perspective to the power of the competitions and the specialty coffee community world wide – we often hear that this is ‘just coffee’ but for some of the national champions around the world, winning this competition is going to mean an unprecedented opportunity to travel to Colombia next year and to gain a world view that may very well not have been attainable otherwise.

For the rest of the competitors, there was a great sense of camaraderie and urge to learn and develop further and importantly, to give the competition another crack next year. There’s a lot of work to be done in the specialty coffee scene in the UAE; building the consuming culture dominated by middle eastern style boiled coffee and the viewpoint that the barista is on the same standing as a dishwasher requires a mental shift that won’t come easy. However, with a collection of passionate baristas and judges based in Dubai and further afield, it’s obviously now only a matter of time!

Raja Muthusamy wins the 2010 UAE Barista Championship

The 2010 UAE Barista Champion in action

Top six baristas in the UAE selected

The second day of competition in Dubai for the UAE Barista Championships saw another round of enthusiastic baristas present to the sensory judges a wide range of drink styles and approaches, obviously the result of much hard work and effort. Many of these guys are working full time jobs and have, like competition baristas worldwide, been putting in the hard yards in their own time to craft a presentation.

It’s encouraging to see the level of coffee knowledge during the competition as there’s been a marked increase from last year! The top six competitors who now progress through to the finals are, in no particular order:

Romeo Perello – Kempinski Hotel

Elavarasan Pandiyan – Raw Coffee Company

Dada Kalandar Noor – Dallmayr Kaffee

Almas Ahmad – Shura Trading

Raja Muthusamy – Raw Coffee Company

Kushal Balami – Raw Coffee Company

These six will reconvene in the final round to decide who is this years’ UAE Barista Champion!

Along with the national Barista Championships, the Specialty Tea and Coffee conventions is providing an opportunity for a broader spectrum of the industry to pick up new skills and knowledge with various presenters and trainers flying in from around the world. For the past two years, the event organisers, International Conventions and Exhibitions (ICE), have forged strong relationships with leading edge industry associations such as the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA), Specialty Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE) and our very own AustralAsian Specialty Coffee Association (AASCA). This year, the SCAA has continued their support for regional development with Executive Director Ric Rhinehart heading up a team of workshop leaders including Ellie Hudson-Matuszak, Phuong Tran and Shawn Hamilton who are sharing their extensive knowledge of specialty coffee.

Stay tuned for the final results of the top 6!

Coffee in the Oasis

My journey in the coffee industry most recently takes me to Dubai – with lingering memories of the dramatic coffee of the middle east served with sugar and spice, this region of the world is slowly beginning to adopt and move towards the espresso driven specialty coffee culture. Dubai, the consummate host of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is to once again become a hub for the 2^nd UAE Barista Championships and associated Specialty Coffee and Tea trade show.

Making the trek from Melbourne to Singapore and onwards to Dubai, I arrived on day one to high humidity and some smoking temperatures around 37˚C – somewhat of a change from the crisp spring back home! On the trip from the airport to the hotel, it hit me once again that Dubai is laid out like a series of interconnected Oasis’ – stretches of empty land covered only by eight lane highways connecting gargantuan hotels and malls, the air-conditioning a welcome relief from the heat beating down outside.

The UAE Barista Champs is being held at the very new, very long hotel Meydan – in fact, stretching 1.4km end to end, this is the longest hotel in the world and wraps around a huge horse racing course that will host the World Cup later in the year (http://www.jumeirah.com/en/Hotels-and-Resorts/Destinations/Dubai/Jumeirah-Meydan/The-Hotel/). While the scale and polish of the venue could lean towards impersonality, we’re here for some very human connections with both the baristas and judges. Day one and two of the trip have been dedicated to a Judge Workshop with myself and Scott Conary from the US taking a pool of judges with a variety of competition experiences through the procedures and philosophies of becoming a quality competition judge. It was exciting to see a range of past competitors, including last year’s UAE Champion, a past Serbian national barista champ, a USA national champ and a Hungarian national champ. These guys added an invaluable level of empathy and technical understanding of what’s happening up on stage. My apologies to all who had to sit through and mock judge my hastily prepared competition performance – there’s a reason I stepped down from competing!

Day one of the competition is over and with 11 competitors down, we have another 10 to go. The skill levels are varied but the inspiring thing is to see the attitude that all competitors are taking to learning some more about the barista craft. While choosing a champion to represent the country is obviously the end goal, the development of the coffee culture and opportunity for growth is a hugely positive byproduct of the competitions.

Day two of the competition follows on today and from this combined pool of 21 baristas, the top 6 will move onwards to the finals on Day 3, one of whom will be crowned the 2^nd UAE Barista Champion and will head to Bogota, Colombia next year to compete against champions from almost 60 other countries. Let’s see what the competitors bring today!”

Dubai Barista Championships

West Australian Barista/Latte Art and Cupping Championship

This is probably going to the be the first of a few random posts thoughout the weekend that I hope will give you a feel for probably one of the most important events on the WA coffee calendar. Pictures tell a thousand words so I’m going to keep my written stuff really brief.