South American Bean was the venue for the Brisbane southside Become A Barista this year. We thank Karen Puryicky and Christian Harvey for providing their warehouse as the venue. Thank you also to John Bartlett from Coast Coffee for setting up the machines and sponsoring the beans and prizes – and Jane Clark from Pauls for sponsoring the milk.
10 students from the following 3 schools participated …
- Canterbury College
- Emmaus College
- Stretton State College.
It was a cosy space making for a very relaxed event with students helping each other and interacting well with the judges and their teachers. A fun-filled learning experience was the result with students getting valuable feedback from coffee industry professionals.
The students are to be congratulated for working with espresso machines and grinders they’d never used before. While some have part-time jobs that support their training, others had only been making coffee for a few months, a couple of days a week at school.
Here’s a snapshot of their performances.
The winners were …
- Ricky Jones (Emmaus College) – overall winner
- Corey Warner (Canterbury College) – runner-up
- Ricky Jones (Emmaus College) and Larissa Pettides (Stretton State College) – a tie for best technical score
- Ricky Jones (Emmaus College) – best espresso (sensory)
- Corey Warner (Canterbury College) – best milk beverage (sensory)
- Ebony Shaw (Emmaus College) – best signature beverage (sensory).
And here are some of the beverages they presented, where we are starting to see simple combinations e.g. using fruit that especially impressed the judges.
There’s general improvement in the standard of milk pouring and some good attempts at latte art. Not bad for students who’ve only had one lesson in latte art and have only been making coffee for such a short amount of time.
Judges were Taylor Heslop (freelance barista), Karen Velasquez (South American Bean), John Bartlett (Coast Coffee) – as well as Paul and I from Coffee Education Network.
