2012 world championship events
In our team T’s we were in Vienna to support …
- Craig Simon (Veneziano Coffee), the Australian Barista Champion
- Fred Lullfitz (Di Bella Coffee), the Australian Cup Tasters Champion
- Matt Perger (St Ali), the Australian Brewers Cup Champion.
We were particularly proud of Matt Perger winning the World Brewers Cup, the latest World Champion from Australia, who also came 3rd in last year’s World Barista Championship. It’s a case of ‘watch this space’ as Matt is a young man making his mark on the international coffee scene – at a very young age, very quickly.
Other Australian exhibitors, Chris Short from Cafetto, Mark Hanna from Natvia and Jeff Dutton from Da Vinci Gourmet Syrups and judges (including Ben Bicknell, Ross Quail and Craig Dickson) were there in the stands waving flags too.
The Latte Art and the Coffee in Good Spirits championships were held in Seoul, Korea. While there was no Australian Coffee in Good Spirits Champion, Scott Luengen, from Cup Specialty Coffee represented Australia as the Latte Art Champion.
The winning performance in the Coffee in Good Spirits was truly international – with Akos Orosz from Hungary making Irish coffee in Korea using coffee beans from Honduras and Rwanda, with a syphon coffee maker that was invented in Germany!
Innovative things I saw for the first time on the trade floor were varied and included multi-head grinders, coloured group handles and capsules for specialty coffees.
I was invited by Annemarie Tiemes from the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe to do a presentation on Training Strategies to a group of 50 certified barista trainers. To do so in 3 hours and to decide what strategies to pick from a 26-year career as a teacher was a tall order, but apparently the choice went down well, as I’ve had some lovely emails back from those who attended.
Because of Vienna’s central location in Europe, there were many visitors from across Eastern Europe. Someone I’m particularly grateful to have met is Sergey, a Ukrainian judge who set me right on a little inaccuracy in my coffee history. Most history sources cite Koltschitzky (the spy responsible for helping to free Vienna from Turkish control in 1683) as Polish. Sergey was able to supply me with convincing evidence (along with a photo of a statue) that Koltschitzky was, in fact, Ukrainian.
It was also a delight to meet Alf Kramer who, as the first president of the SCAE, in 1998 proposed the idea of a world championship event. For this reason Alf has become a legendary figure in the coffee world but he’s also a down to earth man with an enormous sense of humour – who says he has a degree in ‘human behaviour’. Whether this is real or not, I don’t know, but clearly Alf has extraordinary insight into the way people relate and behave and it was a pleasure to spend time with him at the Opening Reception.
World of Coffee coming to Australia
Possibly the highlight in Vienna for Australians, was the announcement that Melbourne will host the 2013 World Barista & Brewer’s Cup Championships; something that was met with great pride and excitement from all the Australians in Vienna. It will take place at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo, an event that was launched earlier this year by Prime Creative. I understand the largest proportion of the effort to get this event to Australia was by Craig Dickson from Veneziano Coffee, current president of the AustralAsian Specialty Coffee Association.
Vienna School of Coffee
Johanna Wechselberger from the Vienna School of Coffee had kindly made her space available for competitors to practice their routines in the lead-up to their performances. Johanna has competed in many European and world championships herself and her enthusiasm for coffee, always coupled with a warm smile, is clearly apparent.
The 2012 World Champions …
- Barista – Raul Rodas, Guatemala
- Cup Tasters – Cory Andreen, Germany
- Brewers Cup – Matt Perger, Australia
- Cezve/Ibrik – Zoltan Kis, Hungary
- Latte Art – Victoria Kashirtseva, Russia
- Coffee in Good Spirits – Akops Orosz, Hungary.
Hailing from Guatemala, Raul Rodas’ win at the World Barista Championship is just the second time a barista from a producing country has won the competition – in it’s 13 year history. This was something the whole coffee community at the event acknowledged and celebrated. We caught up with him the next day, proudly carrying his Reg Barber trophy around the cafes.
Coffee & cake
We couldn’t leave Vienna without devoting time to researching the Viennese ‘coffee and cake concept’. We took in a good number of the traditional coffee houses that have been around for hundreds of years, along with a few of the emerging new wave cafes, some of which had only been open a few weeks. But that’s another blog or two!
