Australian Barista Champion Jack Simpson of Axil Coffee shares his hopes and ambitions for himself and the Australian coffee market in 2024.
What are your professional goals for 2024?
The first part of my year will be taken up with training for the Australian Barista Championship, gearing up for the nationals. I’ll be spending a lot of my spare time exploring new ideas, so I will be dedicating most of my time towards this.
After competition season is over, a big dream of mine is to open a café so I’ll be moving forward to take the first steps into that venture. With a lot of travel and events on the cards for next year, I’ll be definitely making the most of my down time catching up with friends and family.
What do you think will be the biggest challenge for baristas in 2024 ?
I think as baristas we create our own challenges, no matter how big or small, to push ourselves to learn more and engage with the community we’re a part of. The industry is slowly pushing toward automation in many areas so the challenge I would encourage other baristas to take is to find a way to adapt and strive to improve with these innovations. Rather than resisting change, adapt and improve with it so we become better baristas with these tools.
