The Coffee-making experts from Barista, Sri Lanka, showed off their latte art and espresso cocktails, demonstrating skills and speed as they sought to be crowned, the Grand Barista Challenge Champion 2016, at the annual challenge held for the fourth consecutive year, as coffee specialists and milk mongers gathered to sing the praise of their favourite beverage.
According to the senior team at Barista, the Grand Barista Challenge is all about baristas becoming better and better at their job. It’s about their time management, skill and supremacy over the grinding process, correct measurement, powder dozing and pressing of your espresso and overall flare.
Thuwan Suraj from Barista World Trade Centre, was the winner of the Grand Barista Challenge.
“We are proud of Thuwan, who has competed in this challenge for the third consecutive year and has come out as the top Barista for 2016. He will be sent for further training to India, where Lavazza has one of two plants outside of Italy with world-class, fully automated manufacturing unit covering an area of 40,000 square metres.
The judges of the competition included, Milza Richado (F&B Consultant at Galle Face Hotel);Kias Borum (Café Consultant);Damith Dalawalla (Training and Development Barista);Salinda Hewapathirana (Head of Product Development and Training – Lavazza, Sri Lanka)and Jerom Romesh (Business Development Manager - Delonghi);who said, there has been a tremendous improvement year on year in the competition.
The six finalists were selected through an elimination process with over 60 applicants entering the challenge from across the Barista network of fifteen outlets in the Island. The applicants had to prove themselves adept in many departments. They had to be skilled in the art of tasting coffee; brewing, in which the barista must brew a coffee using manual methods to the best of his or her ability; signature drink, in which a signature coffee-based cocktail is made; espresso blending; latte art; and handling orders, where a skill was proved by making three drinks in fifteen minutes. Barista, the first coffee bistro in Sri Lanka opened in 2002 to serve Sri Lanka with the finest brew of authentic Italian coffee culture.