Genovese Coffee in conjunction with Detpak will host a competition at the 2018 Melbourne International Coffee Expo (MICE) in March to select the Australian representative for the reality coffee program Barista & Farmer, taking place in Colombia.
To select the winner, Detpak will host five Latte Art Smackdowns around Australia during February and March. The smackdowns will take place in Victoria Tasmania, New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia.
The winner of each round will receive a cash prize and automatic entry into the Genovese Coffee Selection Final, taking place on the Detpak stand at MICE on 23 March. The Final will see 16 baristas go head to head in an elimination format Latte Art Smackdown. Baristas must pour the same randomly-selected pattern for assessment by three judges. The winner will proceed to the next round until just four remain.
The top four competitors will then compete in a cup tasting challenge of four triangulations. Each triangle will consist of two identical coffees, and one odd coffee. Competitors will identify the odd coffee by pushing that cup forward into a selection zone. All four competitors will compete at the same time, and each competitor must raise their hand to signal when they have completed the challenge. The winner will be the barista who guesses the most correct cups in the quickest time.
The winner of the Australian competition will be flown to Colombia to join participants from around the world and live on a working coffee farm. For 10 days the national representatives will participate in a series of challenges, experience harvesting and processing, and engage in educational courses presented by leading coffee educators.
The Detpak Latte Art Smackdown series is open to any barista. To qualify for the Genovese Coffee Selection Final, baristas must not have won a regional or national coffee competition (such as the Australian Specialty Coffee Association Coffee Championships).
For more information, follow @detpakpacking.
