Brisbane's Hot Shot Barista

Just doing some shameless, self promotion. This is a video I made for JOUR1112. It's on the Australian Latte Art Champion, Scott Luengen. 

I realise it's a terrible piece of journalistic work BUT it explains what the competition entails and also contains some nice latte art. While Scott was not in the right place to do his award winning patterns (I may have bothered him at work!) you can check out his routine from the Australian Latte Art Championships.

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! 

Latte Art Awesomeness

After my previous blog on latte art I went on the search for some fantastic latte art. The first website I came upon was Rate My Rosetta. While not world champion material, they do show some awesome rosettas, tulips and hearts.

Though what I really wanted to see was how the world’s best do it. Chris Loukakis, the 2011 World Latte Art Champion, has some amazing videos on Youtube showing how he does what he does best.

Looks easy doesn’t it? Wrong! This stuff is extremely difficult and the World Latte Art Championships is one of the main reasons latte art has taken off and latte artists have progressed into doing some crazy patterns.   

Let’s just look at how far latte art has progressed in 4 years. Jack Hanna, the 2007 world champion, was doing some truly cool patterns at the time; rosettas, fire breathing pac-man, tulips, hearts and mixes of the basic patterns in regular cups all quickly and at a world standard level. But comparatively to Chris’s video before we already see a vast difference.

So what are judges in the championships now looking for? Each competitor must do a latte, macchiato and designer pattern which are marked (with multiplier weighting) as follows by the visual judges:

Two patterns and presented picture identical (0 if no picture presented) (0-6 pts) x 2

Contrast between ingredients (0-6 pts)

Harmony, size and position among patterns within cups (0-6 pts)

Successfully achieved level of difficulty (0-6pts) x 2

Visual Foam Quality (0-6pts) x 2

Overall appealing look (0-6pts) x 4

On top of this, baristas need to have technical excellence to substantiate their latte art skills, which constitutes one third of their final mark!

I could watch these latte artists for hours on end still in awe, but let me show you one last picture.

This was done by the 2011 and 2012 Queensland Latte Art Champion – a 13 part tulip. A Queensland competitor, who consequently went on to be 3^rd in Australia in 2011, is already pulling out patterns which the 2007 world latte artist at the time could not produce, let alone with the contrast, symmetry and positioning in the cup. The world of latte art is surely looks bright, especially for the Australian baristas! 

Aesthetically Pleasing

Unquestionably, as individuals, we put an emphasis on the aesthetics; the better it looks the more we are drawn to it. Of course we eventually realise that the substance matters, but there’s no denying that we (at least initially) rate pretty things better.

Aesthetics are also important when it comes to coffee – the nicer the presentation the better we think it is. So what constitutes a good looking coffee?

In the coffee world baristas pride themselves on latte art, the illustrations on top of the milky coffees. This is done by the mixing of two colloids; the crema of the espresso and the microfoam of the textured milk. There are two ways to produce this: free pour and etching.

Let’s first look at etching. This is where baristas use other utensils to manipulate the pattern within the foam after the milk has been poured. This includes the use of sticks/metal equivalents, syrups, chocolate powder and even colouring to achieve artistic results. Some of the works can be very intricate and even show great artistic ability as can be seen below.

Using chocolate syrup and utensils

Etch of John Lennon - very artistic!

The other way is free pouring. This is where the barista pours a pattern straight away when pouring the textured milk into the shot of coffee. This is done by either keeping the cup level or on a tilt and the barista pouring the milk in a wiggle or back-and-forth motion of the jug, allowing the textured milk to separate into the drier foam and liquid milk, thus forming latte art… at least that’s the simplified method barring the in-depth scientific analysis of colloids.

There are three basic patterns that free pour latte artists create; the heart, rosetta and tulip.

6 part tulip

Heart

Rosetta

So which method is better? Often people argue that there is great skill in doing free pour as it takes greater manipulation and understanding of the milk. Furthermore, you only have one chance to get it right, whereas with etching you can go back and “edit” (so to speak) the art on the coffee. Personally speaking, having tried to do free pour, it is very difficult to get a pattern with good symmetry, contrast and presence in the cup…. Also I just don’t like the idea that someone has been messing with my coffee and using utensils for over a minute trying to make it look pretty. Just free pour it and send it out!

Having said that, having a coffee with latte art doesn’t necessarily mean it will be a good cup of coffee. Baristas have taken note that aesthetically pleasing coffee can attract customers and as such have placed an emphasis on this. But that is another issue – another blog maybe…

 So next time you get a latte or a flat white, take a look at the art. If there’s nothing on your coffee really think about how good it is. If there is latte art, is it really a good cup of coffee, or is it just pretty?