Blenz Latte Art Compz

It’s a pour off.

The latte art competition took place on Saturday as promised, down at “the Fringe” on Granville Island.  Blenz hosted the event, and for those of you who may not know – Blenz is actually home to the current Seattle Millrock Latte Art champion – Layla Osberg.  She’s actually won twice, so you could say she is kind of a big deal.  She played MC for the event as well.

There was quite a nice turnout, with over 20 baristas, and a larger than expected audience.

Crema was being represented by my 2 brothers and I, as well as Navid – so we had a healthy amount of presence.  I have to say I was quite surprised and a little disappointed that there weren’t more baristas from around the city.  It didn’t cost a thing to enter as Blenz graciously sponsored the entire event – and on top of all that the 1st place prize is an all paid trip to Japan.  That being said – Artigiano had 2 representatives, and Wicked had one as well.  All the other competitors were from Blenz as far as I know.  Oh, and one guy from Steamrollers on Robson, who used to work for Blenz.  

Old school hip hop was blasting throughout the bar from a mac and soundboard, creating a beautiful pour off atmosphere. 

The judges panel was made up of a more than respectable trio consisting of John Sanders, Arthur Wynne, and Wayne Wright.  John Sanders is the owner of Origins Coffee and Hines Coffee, and supplied all the beans I might add.  Arthur Wynne is a barista at Wicked Cafe and a world barista championship certified judge.  Wayne Wright is co-owner of the Bravo Coffee Group, who are the main distributers of La Cimbali in Western Canada.  (I read all this information about the judges after the fact, here.)

Each competitor gets 5 minutes of practice time, and 5 minutes of actual competition time.  During the competition time, you can make as many pieces of art you like, but you can only submit a maximum of 3 to the judges.  Of those 3, the judges pick the one which they think is best, and then score it.  You do not have to submit 3 if you don’t want, just as you don’t have to use all the practice or competition time.  Halfway through the competition Layla announced that the top 10 pourers would advance to the second and final round, thus adding 2 more spots from the originally said 8.

John was the first of the 4 of us to go – and was looking good in the practice.

 

His actual pours were all great – but unfortunately not what the judges were looking for.  He scored well, but would eventually miss advancing to the next round by 1 spot.  Ironically enough, the last pour of the day was the one that knocked him out, and it was of a heart.  We have since dubbed the pour as “the heartbreaker.”

Our younger brother Chris followed, and poured beautifully. With his as well though, the judges didn’t seem too impressed.  His pour would go on to receive 2 more points than John’s and he ended up placing 10th,  just enough to move on.

I don’t have a picture of any of the finished products but it is my understanding that Blenz will be making some kind of video/picture montage of the event.  If they do, I will link to it as soon as it is up.  

After Chris, Navid stepped up to the plate.  It was just a coincidence that the 3 of them happened to all pour back to back to back, in case you were wondering.

Navid poured the ”tulip”, and his pours were pretty good – despite admitting to having the shakes while up on stage.  His scores weren’t good enough to move on to the next round, but it was a good showing none the less.

About 5 or 6 competitors later,  I was up.  At this point you could sort of start to see what the judges were looking for and I decided to change my original pour.  I submitted 3 different pieces of art, and the one they picked was a rosetta with a heart on top.  It was interesting that they picked this over the tulip I had poured, because to me the tulip is a much more difficult pour.  They had their reasons I’m sure though – and they obviously liked it because my pour put me in at 2nd place at the time.  I would go on to finish 5th, advancing onward alongside Chris to the finals at the end of the month.

Below is Adam from Wicked Cafe.  He was loving it.  (And I think he advanced too.)

I believe from the top 4, 3 were from Blenz, and one from Artigiano.  After I poured, the president of Blenz introduced himself to me, which was pretty awesome.  His name is George too.  

One thing that Layla mentioned was that the top placing independent (someone not from Blenz) would also be offered a chance to be sponsored by Blenz to compete around the world with a fellow Blenz employee as team B.C.  I’m sure there are more details than just this but that’s what she said.  In any case, that doesn’t sound like it would be too bad a job for a year or 2 now does it?  I’ll follow up on this after the next round when I know more about it.

So there you have it.  Thank you Blenz.

The chance to go to Japan takes place Friday, September 26th at – get this – the Vancouver Public Library Square.  How cool is that?  In terms of a final, the Vancouver Library is almost as epic a setting as Rainbow Road.  Almost.

Come on out and watch, it’s gonna be fun.  I will remind everyone when the date is closer.