Carolina Ibarra Garay of Café De Leche in the United States has won the 2018 World AeroPress Championship (WAC), held at Commune in Sydney on 17 November.
Chinese airline employee Xiaobo Zhang placed second, and Evgeni Pinchukov from Belarus placed third through a surprise wildcard return after getting eliminated in the first round.
The Single O and WAC co-hosted event pitted champions from 56 countries against each other in a series of coffee brewing rounds using an AeroPress.
Festivities began on 16 November, with jetlag-curing espressos at the Single O café in Surry Hills before an outing to the Clovelly Bowling and Recreation Club.
On the following day, a Welcome to Country ceremony was held on behalf of the traditional custodians of this land before the competition began.
For the first time, this year’s attendees were able to taste competitor’s coffees at the Competitor Brew Bar, where the national champions headed for one last brew with their trusty AeroPresses following their performances.
Unlike previous years, which allowed competitors to tinker with their coffee strategy for weeks in advance, this year, competitors were given the secret coffee only four hours before the event.
Despite this twist, WAC says the competitors kept their cool on Saturday and made the most of prep time with the revealed Kenya Mugaya AA coffee.
Carolina brewed 34.9 grams of the coffee in an inverted position and used 200 grams of water at 85°C.
Her recipe was as follows:
Step 1: Set your water temperature at 85°C
Step 2: Prepare filter paper and grind coffee.
Step 3: Pour 100 grams of water for 30 seconds.
Step 4: Stir vigorously but carefully with wooden pair of chopsticks for 30 seconds.
Step 5: Put the filter cap on, flip the AeroPress and press into a glass server for 30 seconds.
Step 6: Do not preheat your serving vessel.
Step 7: Top up your brew with 60 grams of 85°C water and 40 grams of room temperature water.
For more information, visit www.worldaeropresschampionship.com
Image credit: Abi Varney