After a lively night of fast-paced grinding and pressing in a Burswood warehouse, Jennifer Argyle has been crowned your 2017 Western Australian World Aeropress Champion.
The second annual Western Australian World Aeropress Championship event was held at Whipper Snapper’s beautiful warehouse facility in Burswood. We had a blast, and it was great to share good times, delicious burgers and tasty beers from the extremely generous Eagle Bay Brewing Company with the community that makes this industry so great to be a part of.
The carnage came down to a fierce final battle between Desiree Tonks of Port City Roasters, Jennifer Argyle from Blackbox Coffee Brewers and our very own Mitchell Fink (or Mitchalicious as we like to call him). With a split judge’s decision, Jennifer was crowned champion, Mitchell came in second, with Desiree taking third place.
Whilst the Aeropress showdown went on at one end of the warehouse, the flip-side was an all-night pong tournament with Rich Austin from Five Senses Coffee taking the top spot.
If you haven’t heard about the World Aeropress Championships before, let us bring you up to speed. Barista competitions over the years have become increasingly hard to participate in. As the best baristas have continuously pushed the boundaries of our industry, it has become common place to see competitors dedicate months of their time to training, traveling to origin to learn unique stories to share with the judging panel, and using coffees worth hundreds of dollars per kilo. Essentially it’s become the Formula One of coffee competitions.
The World Aeropress Championship (WAC) look to level the playing field, and to make competitions more accessible to everyday baristas, and home enthusiasts alike.
Everyone uses the same coffee, and the same brewing device, to try and extract the tastiest cup of coffee. But don’t think that the competition’s boring. Competitors looks for any advantage to get an edge over their peers. Our entrants brought their own grinders that they’d tailored their recipes to. Many competitors had formulated custom water recipes, or used sieves to separate different grind sizes to create the best coffee possible.
But for all the geekery, a unifying love of coffee, and the industry that surrounds it permeated the evening. It’s great to see good people supporting each other in the name of fun and community.
Jennifer wins a trip to Sydney where she will compete in the Australian World Aeropress Championship, plus a bundle of fantastic prizes from Baratza and Acaia.
© Photos provided with permission by Chloe Tala. All rights reserved by photographer.
