Sunday, the national Barista Champs Wellington heat. And an awful game of 5-a-side. Let's blame the heat for that, though...
As has been pointed out to me, there is no text around these things, so I shall attempt to add some colour. Hmm.
Eastbourne was great. Just a fine place to go to enjoy the sun.
The Barista champs were good fun. A friend was down from Auckland to check out the opposition with a couple of guys who will be competing next week. These fellows really know their stuff, and I felt typically ignorant. Nonetheless, the atmosphere was excellent, the coffees looked and (in the case of the simmering nectarines especially) smelt wonderful. And L'Affare was in fine form with the drinks we could obtain there. The winner, from Feilding, was probably the best presented, for me, which might argue if the quality of coffee made that much difference, if I were the cynical type. Ahem. I'd also guess that the judges didn't see him remove the hair from his speciality drink... 15 minutes to make 4 espressos (espressi?), 4 cappuccinos(cappuccini?) and 4 of the speciality. Tough task! The guy pictured above was probably my pick, but he did run over time quite a lot.
