The Top Tasters

Fresh from the exciting revealing of the cups, the top 8 cup tasters have been announced, with the top 4 moving onto the finals!

Place	Competitor	Country	Cups Correct	Time
1st	Georg Branny	Austria	7	7:34
2nd	Cory Andreen	Germany	6	6:55
3rd	Kim Ossenblok	Spain	6	7:29
4th	Tassos Moschopoulos	Greece	5	3:52
5th	Donovan McLagan	South Africa	5	4:03
6th	Jose Francisco Castro Tenorio	Costa Rica	5	7:25
7th	Christophe Rubino	France	4	6:07
8th	Luis Gerardo	Guatemala	3	5:36

The CupTasting top four from the semi-finals have progressed into the final round, which starts tomorrow Friday the 15^th at 1:30 Vienna time (9:30pm Australia). Check out how the world best do it live!

Cup Tasting Top 10

After round one of the cup tasting competition, the results are as follows with the top 8 progressing through to the semi-finals:

Place	Competitor	Country	Cups Correct	Time
1st	Georg Branny	Austria	8	6:47
2nd	Tassos Moschopoulos	Greece	7	3:06
3rd	Luis Gerardo	Guatemala	7	3:50
4th	Donovan McLagan	South Africa	7	5:00
5th	Kim Ossenblok	Spain	7	5:28
6th	Christophe Rubino	France	7	5:43
7th	Cory Andreen	Germany	7	5:45
8th	Jose Francisco Castro Tenorio	Costa Rica	7	6:47
9th	Kalle Freese	Finland	7	6:51
10th	Cinzia Linardi	Italy	7	7:22

              

The WorldCup Tasters Championship is probably less promoted than it should be. The competition is set out so that it awards the professional coffee cupper who demonstrates speed, skill, and accuracy in distinguishing the taste differences in specialty coffees.

Coffees of the world have many distinct taste characteristics, and in this competition format the objective is for the cupper to discriminate between the different coffees.  Three cups are placed in a triangle, with 2 cups being identical coffees and one cup being a different coffee – There are 8 triangles in total.  Using skills of smell, taste, attention and experience, the cupper will identify the odd cup in the triangle as quickly as they can.  While it sounds easy, some coffees may be different in the sense that it is the same bean just roasted by different roasters, or even just from different altitudes at the same plantation. What makes this more difficult is the flavour saturation the coffee has on the palate, as such as the cupper tastes more coffee, the harder it is to distinguish.

While it’s probably not the most entertaining thing to watch, as people are racing against the clock, you can still live stream it from 12pm Vienna time on Thursday the 14th (8pm Australia time) – the revealing of the cups is always the most suspenseful! 

Day One of the WBC

Day one of the World Barista Competition is well underway. Today, competition wise, is all about the baristas. With 54 countries having their representatives competing for the glory and the title of the World Champion the schedule is tightly packed. Starting off at 8am Vienna time (Australia is 8 hours in front, so it’s started at 4pm local time for us), the competitors go back to back for two days straight, finishing at 5pm each night.

For the running list of all competitors check out the World Barista Championship website, or the Day 1 and Day 2 schedule links are right here.

Aussie Craig Simon is first up on day two (tomorrow, Wednesday the 13^th). Local time he’ll be on at 4:15pm sharp, so don’t miss him – live stream all the action!

Other Aussie competitors Fred Lullfitz and Matt Perger are also on tomorrow. Cup tasters will be from 10am-3pm, and the Brewers Cup will be from 12pm-4pm.

I’ll surely be watching all the action, so I’ll keep you all updated as the results come in.

And the Winner is...

What a weekend it was. The Melbourne International Coffee Expo was host to the 2012 AASCA Australian Barista Championships. With each state’s representatives fighting it out for the top spot, the nervous and anxious tension stayed in the air well into the time the results were being announced. With hearts racing, dreams on the line and the chance of glory imminent, the following results were announced:

Barista Championship:

1^st Craig Simon (VIC)

2^nd Will Priestly (TAS)

3^rd Janelle Kingsley (QLD)

4^th Jonny Pisanelli (SA)

5^th Matt Troughton (QLD)

6^th John Paul Sutton (QLD)

Latte Art:

1^st Scott Luengen (QLD)

2^nd Angus Mackie

3^rd Jen Marks

4^th Daniel Freer

5^th David Smith

6^th Adrian Zwicker (QLD)

7^th Ben Morrow

8^th Kaya Mc Carthy

Brewers Cup:

1^st Matt Perger

2^nd Dan Ye

3^rd Josh Tarlo

4^th Kelsey Carr (QLD)

5^th Andy Easthope

6^th Eileen Kenny

Cup Taster

1^st Fred Lullfitz (QLD)

2^nd Jonny Pissanelli

3^rd Craig Simons

So what’s next? The champions of the Barista, Brewer’s Cup and Cup Taster will be heading to Vienna, Austria in 36 days (June 12^th-15^th), and the Latte Art Champion representing in Seoul, South Korea on the 1^st-4^th of November.

I would just like to take this opportunity to say, not only a massive congratulations to all competitors and champions, but also a huge well done to our Queenslanders. Scott and Fred are the first latte art and cup taster champions, respectively, that Queensland has ever had. It also marks the first time that three Queenslanders have been in the final six of the barista category. Just goes to prove how the coffee scene has progressed and improved over the past few years!

Can’t wait for the World Barista Competition, only 36 days and counting – surely our champions, after the hype of winning has worn off, will be training like crazy do Australia proud. Best of luck boys!

Finals Day - Barista Comp

Live stream all the action from the Barista Comp from the link here!


It's finals day so the competition is heating up. Six Barista finalists - three of which are Queenslanders. Six latte art finalists - with our state champion Scott Luengen the only Queenslander left, and the brewers, cupping and coffee in good spirits are all being live streamed! 


Enjoy. The results will be posted tomorrow so stay tuned!

Australian Barista Championships

The best baristas of Australia will be in Melbourne today for the start of the Australian Barista Competition to compete for the champion title. The Melbourne International Coffee Expo, for the first time, will be host to the event organized by the AustralAsian Specialty Coffee Association (AASCA).

Categories of the event are:

• ·       Barista
• ·       Brewers Cup
• ·       Cup Tasting
• ·       Latte Art
• ·       Coffee Roasting
• ·       Coffee in Good Spirits
• ·       Ibrik

The winner of each category receives the prestigious Australian champion title, as well as a full-paid trip to the respective world championships in Vienna, Austria (June 12^th-15^th) or Seoul, South Korea (November, 1^st-4^th).

The event has expanded exponentially in size from last year’s on the Gold Coast, with the venue hosting hundreds of stalls of coffee related products. Quite literally, to fully appreciate each stall, it would take you two days to cover it end to end!

So who’s competing in the event? Today, Friday the 4^th, is the last chance qualifiers for competitors in the barista and latte art categories who competed in the state qualifiers but did not take out first place. As for Saturday and Sunday, these are when the rounds start to heat up with semi-final and final rounds back to back.

The most prestigious title is that for the barista category. In 15 minutes competitors must make four espresso, four cappuccino and 4 signature drinks for the judges, as well as talk the judges and audience through the beans, drinks and any other aspects the competitor wishes to discuss. Each competitor has two technical judges watching the use of the grinder and coffee machine, checking wastage, timing shots, measuring tamping ability and overall cleanliness of the work station. Add on to this four sensory judges to taste the coffee as well as a head judge, and you’ve got a lot of people judging you in a 15-minute time frame!

Queensland will be sending their share of contenders after the state qualifiers in November last year produced four state champions. Matt Troughton and Kelsey Carr, (Dandelion and Driftwood) are the respective barista and brewers representatives, Scott Luengen (Cup Coffee) the latte art specialist, and Fred Lullfitz (Di Bella) the cup tasting champion.

With the event still in the early stages, I’ll be anxiously awaiting the results of the semi – and finals respectively. Stay tuned people, the 2012 best baristas are going to battle it out so we know where to go for our best coffees in Australia. I can only hope Queensland makes it to the top!