So incase you don't already know, this last week (27/09 - 30/09) has been a huge week for the coffee industry, particularly for coffee industry in Melbourne, Australia.
This last week we had MICE (Melbourne International Coffee Expo), World Brewers Cup and World Barista Championship. All within the same venue and the same 4 days.
The Competitions:
After a hectic 4 days we now have a new World Barista Champion, Anthony Douglass from Axil coffee roaster. Watch Anthony's performance below.
We also have a new World Brewers Cup Champion, Taiwan’s Shih Yuan Hsu (Sherry). Sherry used a combination of different grind sizes to highlight different flavours and of course used an Orea V3. Watch Sherry's winning performance below.
The People:
Behind all the fancy coffee machines, delicious coffee and barista champions are the people. While I was lucky enough to be one tram ride away from the Exhibition centre some people travelled all around the world to come to MICE.
On the second day we met the people behind Sibarist, these two were eager to chat coffee, talk through some of the theories and ideas behind their filter papers and were even giving out some of their own awards to the competitors ... genius. 
On Wednesday I was asked to take some photos and videos for IWCA (International Women's Coffee Alliance) This was a talk about different issues surrounding women in coffee and offered a huge insight to some of the problems that I (a man) would never have even thought about.
The panel was fun, cheery and offered a more accessible approach, even when talking about some very serious sometimes sad topics. I was honoured to participate in this and feel as now I have some better insight into these issues as well as better understand the panellists after hearing their stories.
I had the pleasure of meeting Yasuo Suzuki San from Trunk coffee and the inventor of the Origami dripper, a fantastic bright human who turns out to also have killer dance moves.
Last but certainly not least Patrik Rolf from April Coffee roasters competed in the WBC and came 6th, I unfortunately did not have the chance to taste his competition coffees but I did have a chat and was absolutely enthralled with his passion for coffee. (Also yes, the bags are full of multiple sample bottles of Oat milk).
