In its 6th year, it was time to move the Become A Barista competitions to new locations – to share the load around the coffee community. We thank Blue Sky Coffee for their 5-year commitment to the competition as well as Grinders Coffee for now agreeing to take on the Brisbane competition. This involves setting up the workstations, sponsoring the beans and organising the sponsorship of the milk from their supplier.
With the new location came new judges including Michaela Gerard (Grinders) and Taylor Heslop (freelance barista) as sensory judges, Nerida Ritchie (Belaroma) and Carla De Jesus (Carla’s Coffee) as technical judges – with Paul Holiday from Coffee Education Network as head judge calibrating the beverages and collating the scores.
Prizes were donated by Brent Deller at Barista Tools and us at Coffee Education Network with Barista Bibles for the winner and barista guides for all participants.
Finally, we noticed that all the hard work of mentors and teachers was starting to reap rewards with an improvement in the standard of foaming and pouring milk – with some good latte art starting to appear as well.
All the competitors gave confident performances and it appears the overall standard of the competition is improving. Here are a few snapshots of each of the performances.
Another thing we noticed this year, was that the students are relating to the judges a lot more. Some are also multitasking – being able to describe what’s in their signature beverages while serving them.
This year there were a lot of supporters for the students – including teachers, parents and fellow students who came along to help out as runners, ushers and workstation managers.
The schools that participated in the Grinders competition were …
- Genesis Christian College
- Northside Christian College
- San Sisto College
- Our Lady’s College.
The winning students for the 2016 Become A Barista at Grinders were …
- Brodie Staines (Northside Christian College) – overall winner
- Erin Hopwood (San Sisto College) – runner-up
- Brodie Staines (Northside Christian College) highest technical score
- Brodie Staines (Northside Christian College) – highest sensory score
- Brodie Staines (Northside Christian College) and Robert Nelson (Genesis Christian College) – a 2-way tie for the best espresso
- Brodie Staines (Northside Christian College) – best milk beverage
- Ben Gibson (Northside Christian College) – best signature beverage
The students at Northside Christian College took out most of the top scores, with Brodie Staines a clear winner way ahead of the rest with his scores – Well done Brodie!
Following the competition, Michaela and Taylor gave a few demonstrations on how to pour milk by holding the cup in one hand and the jug in the other – demonstrating and describing the exact latte art technique. We hope everyone went back to school and practised!
