Latte Art ThrowDown II: The Finale!

Having 17 competitors working through 34 cups of coffee, we still had time for a few more to get their hands on the machine. Kimberly called for competitors to step up, and I was volunteered by my teammates at Oriole to try my hands at impressing the judges. I could only manage a triple rosetta under that tremendous pressure. And that wraps up this round of competition.

Everyone took a short break while our 3 wonderful judges took meticulous effort to tally up the score. And surprisingly we have a tie for the top position. Shin Hao got a high score of 24 from 3 judges, with an average of 8 (max score is 10) and I managed to tie his score of 24. So to decide the winner, we had to do a tie-breaker. It was done in a face-off style. Both of us decide to pour a tulip for the face off. He did a 3 tier tulip while I attempted a 5 tier tulip. (Well it’s not about how many you pour, it’s more of how define the art is) The judges deliberated long and hard, and we were tied again!

So it’s face-off round 2. This time, the judges wanted us to duplicate what we just poured. And the art will be compared to the previous one and it will be judged on the similarities and definition. And I was awarded an extra point for similarity. It was a close call and it’s definitely a tough decision by the judges… Well I guess I walked away with the pot as well as the tamper thrown in by Kimberly, a bottle of red wine, courtesy of Oriole Cafe & Bar which was shared among some of the Baristas present.

Before you all thought that was the end of the night, we had an impromptu finale which is the Blindfold Pouring! Thanks also to Kimberly for throwing in the Reg Barber tamper as a prize! We opened it up to 5 contestants that were adventurous to attempt such a feat. (We had Ian, Raj, Terence, Alif & Danny)

Two thumbs up to Terence who managed to pull off a rosetta while being blindfolded. Well done my friend.

As the event came to a close, many of the baristas stayed on for a few drinks while we caught up after not meeting for a couple of months, we look forward to such gathering again. A round of applause to Kimberly for such an initiative, thank you to Emmanuel for helping to co-ordinate the flow of event. Once again thanks to SCA & Greenfields for helping us baristas & coffee lovers to meet. I’m already looking forward to meeting everyone at the next event.

I’m really glad to see baristas putting effort to improve the level of latte art in Singapore. We believe all this passionate & professional baristas will certainly elevate the coffee scene here in Singapore. Well done guys, keep brewing with dedication.