It was a long day. Needless to say, I did not make the final of the cup tasting, managing only 5/8 in 2:16 and eating nothing but bread all day.
The latte art and cup tasting complete, the finalists chosen for the competition tomorrow, shortly after 6pm Queensland time (which is an hour out of the rest of the east coast of Australia without being geographically different – go figure!) the top five baristas in Australia were announced for the Detpak Australian Barista championship tomorrow:
Jesse Hyde (VIC)
Zoe Delaney (VIC)
Tim Adams (QLD)
Habib Maarbarni (NSW)
Con Haralambopolous (VIC)
it’s going to be an awesome contest, with an amazing calabre of baristas and judges. Our most fabulous MC, Carl Sara of www.carlsara.com (WBC finalist in 2004, 2005 & 2007) will be calling the action all day.
This is Carl being interviewed for the live stream, talking into the ‘hairdryer’ microphone…
And what happens when a new, young, enthusiastic barista finds out he’s through to the final of the latte art championship?
This is Will, he moved from Tasmania to Melbourne to pursue his love of coffee, and has ended up qualifying first for the Latte art championships. We took this photo about 3 mins before he went onstage, to help ‘calm his nerves’.
This is him being less jumpy. Imagine what might happen if he wins!
Updates to follow – stay tuned!