David Train has won the Australian Specialty Coffee Association (ASCA) 2020 Southern Region Brewers Cup.
Hyunsuk Ko of Bennetts placed second and Devin Loong of Ona Coffee placed third in the competition, held at St Ali in Port Melbourne from 26 to 27 October.
“I’ve been really lucky. The first time I did the Brewers Cup I placed third, the second time I placed second, and now in the third time I’ve entered, I’ve placed first. It’s surreal,” David says.
“Every time you compete you learn. You learn how to prepare better, how to brew better, and how to put ideas together. So, every year I’ve taken what I’ve learnt and tried to apply it to the brewing. But I also am lucky to have had really awesome coffee.”
David is a coffee importer at Langdon Coffee Merchants by trade and entered the competition independently. He has been brewing coffee for close to 10 years. In the competition he used an anerobic fermented natural Geisha from Panama and a fast brew to best extract the coffee’s flavours. The coffee was fermented with zero oxygen for 20 days.
“It’s a very divisive coffee. People either love it or hate it,” he says. “This coffee is quite soluble, so I needed a fast, aggressive brew to highlight it. I know if I had a long brew it would be quite overbearing and bitter.”
According to David, understanding the coffee as best as possible is essential for competitive brewing.
“The flavour of the coffee is already there, it’s your job to manipulate it and enhance what you can,” he says.
A strong focus of David’s routine was sustainability, something that is extremely important to him on a personal and professional level.
“I try and give as much of a voice for the producer of the coffee as I can. Finca Hartmann who produced the coffee invest in social, financial, and environmental sustainability. They’re promoting organic coffee growth with no pesticides and employ indigenous people to cultivate it,” he says.
St Ali also hosted the ASCA 2020 Southern Region Barista, Latte Art, and Cup Tasters Championships.
Anthony Douglas of Axil Coffee Roasters won the ASCA 2020 Southern Region Barista Championship, while Ben Cheong of Veneziano placed second and Matt Perger of St Ali placed third.
Victor Vu won the ASCA 2020 Southern Region Latte Art Championship, Louis Cheng of Poolhouse Coffee placed second, and Zhao Ting Wu of Cote Terra Coffee placed third.
Charlie Chu from St Ali won the ASCA 2020 Southern Region Cup Tasters Championship with a score of 8/8 in three minutes and six seconds. Yuki Saito of Addict Food and Coffee placed second and Sheng-Wei Wu of Cote Terra Coffee Roasters placed third.
David, Victor, Anthony, and Charlie have earned positions alongside the #ASCATop12 in their respective fields of the ASCA 2020 Australian Coffee Championships.
“A lot of hard work from people went into this. I’ll take a month off brewing to enjoy some normality and down time then prepare for nationals,” David says.