A woman and two young girls smiling holding metal coffee making equipment

You don’t get a better outcome for entering a school barista competition than being asked to submit your resume to a specialty café that’s opening soon in your area. That’s what happened to Amber Bourke and Maddy Purcell in the photo above. An added bonus for Maddy, was that she was the 2019 overall winner across the two competitions. Needless to say, along with their teacher, they were both thrilled.

The northside competition was held for the second year at Wolff Coffee Roastery in Hendra. Once again, we thank Penny Wolff and her staff for setting up the competition ‘stage’ in the centre of the coffee flavour wheel painted on their warehouse floor. Typical ‘Wolff organisation’ meant the day ran super smoothly with no ‘hiccups’.

a collage of pics of judges judging and looking very judgey

With just 6 participants, there was plenty of opportunity for engagement with the coffee professionals who volunteered their time to judge. Once again we had representatives from across the supply chain – with green bean importer Andres Rodrigues, roaster and trainer Carla De Jesus, consultant and coffee ‘all-rounder’ Taylor Heslop, account manager Fleur Clohesy as well as Paul Holiday from Coffee Education Network. We thank them all for their expertise and generosity in investing in the future of their industry.

The students and teachers who participated on the various schools were …

Brisbane Bayside State College

Alannah Stammer
Sam Walcroft
Claire Stanic (teacher)
Kaitlyn Follett (teacher)

Deception Bay State High School

Chantelle Brooks
Tyrell McLeod
Jamee-Leigh Webster (teacher)

North Lakes Secondary College

Amber Bourke
Maddy Purcell
Madhur Chandra (teacher)

Participants are assessed on the technical and sensory aspects of making three beverages – an espresso, a milk coffee beverage and a signature beverage. Here’s a snapshot of each performance …

Sam Walcroft

collage of pics of young man serving beverage in a glass

Chantelle Brooks

3 pics of young lady making coffee while judges look on

Maddy Purcell

3 pics of young lady making coffee while judges look on

Tyrell McLeod

3 pics of young man making coffee while judges look on

Alannah Stammer

3 pics of coffees and young lady talking to judges

Amber Bourke

 

collage including young lady making coffee, two coffee drinks one with slice of kiwifruit, the other with a mint leafAll the participants and their teachers gained from the valuable feedback session given by the judges at the end. They were congratulated for their performances and for ‘giving it a go’. They commented that the students seemed to be enjoying themselves.

In particular, the judges were impressed that we had a second 2019 competition where signature beverages were consistent with current industry standards – without milk, cream and sugar. We thank Taylor in particular, for all the hard work he put into the training day and the teacher PD prior to inspire everyone with current trends in signature beverages.

Such a competition could not be possible without the teachers who prepared the students for the competition. Here they are with their students …

collage of 3 groups of young people smiling

Prizes for the winners and books for all participants were donated by us at Coffee Education Network. And the winners for the second of the two 2019 competitions were …

  • Best performance – Maddy Purcell
  • Highest technical score – Chantelle Brooks
  • Highest sensory score – Maddy Purcell
  • Best espresso – Maddy Purcell
  • Best milk beverage – Maddy Purcell
  • Best signature beverage – Maddy Purcell

Having scooped most of the wins above, Maddy also came out as the OVERALL WINNER from the two competitions.

We also thank the industry professionals who conducted the training day on the competition format and helped raise the bar for milk skills and signature beverages this year  – Dale Pollard from Grinders Coffee, Woolloongabba, Filip Leon from Blackboard Coffee on the Gold Coast, Lucas Marciniak from Common Coffee and Taylor Heslop, freelance coffee consultant – along with head judge Paul Holiday for the fine job he did this year with organising the competition and with collating the scores and judges comments and getting reports and prizes out to the participants.