In 6 years, MICE has grown enormously, attracting a little short of 10,000 people from 41 countries, the majority of countries being Asian. Prime Creative research indicates that the largest proportion of attendees were roasters (30% of those attending), followed by café owners and others across the coffee supply chain. With add-ons to the event including Melbourne Coffee Week, the Australian Coffee Championships, the Product Innovation Awards and the Australian International Coffee Awards, more people have more reasons to attend.
The social events
Paul didn’t accompany me this year to MICE, so I was on my own hanging out with local and interstate friends.
First up, was dinner with Lisa Feeley and Monika Fekete. Lisa wanted me to meet Monika who was going to be in Budapest later in the year as we would be. And if Lisa had won the Brewers Cup, so would she! Monika hails from Budapest and was going to visit family and also attend World of Coffee. We cemented a lovely friendship over some delicious Chinese food and made plans for our next meeting in Budapest.
Karen Puryicky and Christian Harvey from South American Bean kindly offered me a lift out to and from the show and we also visited some Melbourne cafes together. Particularly impressive was The Vertue of the Coffee Drink, where my breakfast of ‘coffee cured salmon, spring vegetables, puffed amaranth and sous-vide egg’ was a standout.
Oddly named everyone thought; but I was able to explain that ‘The Vertue of the Coffee Drink’ was the name of the first ever advertisement of coffee. Written by Pasqua Rosee in 1652, it explained the health benefits of drinking coffee. Yes, I do enjoy a little coffee history!
I also spent time with Justeen Single from Café Culture and Catherine Italiano who was organising some coffee tours. Together we visited Maillard Atelier, a communal roasting and green bean space owned by Tony Strickett and Celina Lazarus.
Celina and Tony were hosting guests, showing us around and offering a taste of the delicious coffees they’d recently sourced from Africa.
We also attended a cocktail party at Grinders Lygon Street Store where the crowd spilled out onto the street because it was too big to fit into the small space. Their espresso martini mix was launched and was enjoyed along with loads of yummy finger food that just managed to make it through the crowd to hungry partygoers.
Australian Coffee Championships
I got closer to the competition than ever before this year. Being with Lisa Feeley as she prepared for her performance in the Brewers Cup, I got an up-close-and-personal taste of what goes on behind the scenes – the last minute tasting and tweaking, the polishing of anything glass and stainless steel and the checking and rechecking that everything was on the trolley. Most of all there was a lot of deep breathing and reminders to be calm from the competitors – or in Lisa’s inimitable style, lots of laughing with the odd joke thrown in! Her performance impressed the judges and Lisa made it into to the final.
Although she didn’t go on to win and accompany us to Budapest, as we would have loved, we celebrated her great performance that evening with friends over a few wines etc.
The end of the last day of MICE is always a special time when everyone gathers at the competition stage to find out who goes onto represent Australia later on in the year. The World Barista and Roaster Championships will be in Guangzhou, China and the Brewers Cup, Latte Art and Cup Tasters will be in Budapest, Hungary.
To fill in time while results were being tallied, a ‘Barista Big Bash’ was staged. In a fun latte art smackdown, Dave Makin, Kirby Berlin, Caleb Cha, Hugh Kelly, Craig Simon, Jack Hanna and Hidenori Izaki combined food colouring and milk. Mess and madness were the result with Dave Makin winning.
There were 5 Australian Coffee Championships in 2017 and the winners were …
- Australian Barista Champion – Hugh Kelly (ONA Coffee)
- Australian Latte Art Champion – Dongsu Shin (Short Black Café)
- Australian Cup Tasters Champion – Yama King (Kingswood Coffee)
- Australian Brewers Cup Champion – Sam Corra (ONA Coffee)
- Australian Roasting Champion – Jack Allisey (Veneziano Coffee)
In the inaugural Australian Roasting Competition fellow Queenslander Danny Andrade from Extraction Artisan Roasters, could not contain his excitement of being in the finals and then placing second. However, it was Jack Allisey from Veneziano Coffee who came in first and will go on to compete in the finals in Guangzhou, China.
Special mention must be made of Anne Cooper and Lucy Ward for putting this competition together and making the inaugural Australian Roasting Competition a huge success.
All the Brewers Cup competitors were called onto the stage but there was just one winner of the Australian Brewers Cup and that was Sam Corra from ONA Coffee in Canberra . Sam was clearly shocked to beat his colleague Devin Loong also from ONA who’d won the competition twice before. We will next see Sam in Budapest as he competes on the world stage. Marcus Allison represented Queensland.
The Australian Latte Art Championship was won by Dongsu Shin from Short Black Café in Melbourne. With bird and animal designs the favourites in his repertoire, he will also go on to represent Australia in the world title. Emily Coumbis from Queensland placed third.
With accuracy and speed the key to winning the Cup Tasters Championship, it was Yama Kim from Kingswood Coffee who showed he had the superior skills. We will also see him in Budapest.
When it came to the announcement of the barista finalists, it was as if you’d been taken back to 2016 – with Queenslander Tilly Sproule from Tim Adams Specialty Coffee in the top 6 and the same 3 finalists as last year left to wait the last few minutes together. Jade Jennings, from Veneziano Coffee, Hugh Kelly from ONA Coffee and Matt Lewin from Axil Coffee huddled together, each in anticipation of the announcement in their favour, But it was Hugh Kelly who was to take out first place – for the second year in a row.
Flights of coffee and espresso martinis were among the newcomers to MICE this year – along with the usual range of new espresso machines and brewing devices, packaging options and other coffee paraphernalia. The most interesting thing I saw was an espresso machine with most of its inside workings under the bench, leaving only the essentials above it. Out and about looking at everything I bumped into these coffee folk.
