Alex Huang from Fresh Air & Pancake in Melbourne’s CBD has been crowned the winner of the Victorian leg of Veneziano Coffee Roasters’ Barista Brawl 2024.
The competition, which took place on Thursday 5 September at Veneziano‘s Richmond venue, saw baristas battle it out in four rounds. Alex Huang took the top spot, Nicholas Petrie from Born & Raised Coffee placed second, Josh Cho came third, and Qiyin Lin of Parlance Coffee rounded out the top four.
Participants collected points in four activities that tested their abilities. The top four competitors progressed to a final round to crown the winner, with the top two baristas gaining a spot in the National Final in March 2025, including flights and accomodation courtesy of La Marzocco Australia.
The four initial rounds consisted of Pour It (baristas rolled the dice to determine the latte pattern to poured and graded by judges), Smell It (baristas identified the aromas of eight different varietals), Assess It (baristas tasted two batch brewed coffees and used a coffee description word cloud to identify the origin, farm names, varietal, processing, and flavour notes), and Eyeball It (baristas manually dosed 20g of coffee by eye into two portafilters, then manually extracted both espressos to a 40g yield into a shot glass).
The final deciding round was called Brew It and required the final four baristas to dial in the provided coffee using the sponsored brewing equipment and grinder in 15 minutes. Competitors brewed side by side and presented the coffees to the judges to crown the winner.
The New South Wales and Queensland rounds of the Veneziano Barista Brawl take place on Thursday 12 September. This year’s prize pool is over $6,000 and in the final each winner will take home a share based on where they place. The competition is be sponsored by La Marzocco, Condesa Co Lab, Brewtech, Barista Supplies, Mazzer Grinder, Coffee Works Express, The Alternative Dairy Co, and BWT Water.
