Another year over, another set of champions have won their way through regionals, semi finals and finals, until there was only one.
Tim Adams, former navy sailor from the sunshine coast of Queensland is the new Australian Barista Champion for 2009 and will represent us in Atlanta in about 8 weeks time.
This is his second year competiting, and he narrowly beat Zoe Delaney (the better half of 2008 WBC runner up Dave Makin) by 10 points. Third place went to Con Haralambopolous the current World Latte Art Champion. We’re doing well down here!
After successfully qualifying four Australians as WBC judges in Melbourne last month, our pool of dedicated and professional domestic judges did a sterling job also, and the changes being implimented across the board are really starting to filter through.
As part of the three day festival, AASCA ran not only the open heats, semi finals and finals of the ABC, but also three other coffee competitions – the Latte Art Championship, Cup Tasting Championship and the Coffee in Good Spirits Championship (which I was lucky enough to judge, and after 5 irish coffees and 5 signature alcoholic drinks, I was less than stable on my feet!)
Congratulations to all our champs. Kirby Berlin, last minute substitute into the Good Spirits (45 minutes to prepare) shone through and will now be flying to Germany in June to the SCAE show.
Also going to Germany later this year – Erin Samson (Girl Power!) who won the Latte art Championship. She has just a small amount of pressure on her, considering Australia has held the World Title in Latte art for the last three years, (2006,2007 & 2008.)
Cup Tasting, an 8 round trangualtion test was won by Ben Bicknell, newly accredited WBC Judge and AASCA Vice President. He freakishly achieved a perfect 8/8 in 1:29 seconds. (The World cup tasting was won in 2008 in 1:19).
It wouldn’t be a barista event without sponsors, so thank you to Nuovo Simonelli, Cafetto, Da Vinci Gourmet and Detpak.
And last but not least the amazing team of dedicated event management (EPIC!) and AASCA volunteers who spent months and months planning and executing an enormous logistical event. Cheers guys.
judges and runners
event manager Nadine and tireless runner Marc.
Congratulations everyone – see you in Atlanta!
Thanks for all the news and great photos, Em! I’m still groggy from all the hours I spent watching the Australian barista events going on online this weekend. From the looks of it, you not only had a terrific time, but managed to determine some powerhouse champions in a variety of categories! All the best, and looking forward to seeing the Aussie champs in Atlanta and Cologne!