London Latte Art Smackdown - #smackdown16 - Round Three

It was a bit of a late start on Friday as either people were running late or they were all at the pub next door getting beers in. However, just on 7:30 we had a full house again with people ramming into our Eastcastle street store to watch 16 brave and fearless baristas competing in Round Three to get into the finals.

We were honoured to have another incredible trio of judges for this round as lead judge and superstar photographer Glenn Watson kept everyone in line and he was joined by the current UK Barista Champion and ranked 9th barista in the world, Dan Fellows from Origin coffee alongside one of the originators of the London Coffee scene, former owner of The Espresso room and still heavily involved in the SCAE events and a trainer at the London School of Coffee, Ben Townsend.

So we started a bit late, but we dropped the lights and kicked off once again with Underworld Live at the Roundhouse for tunes. The standard was again very, very high and even though the judges are amongst the best in the world, they still had a mammoth task deciding, especially when it came to how to hold the cup when you are pouring. Watch out for this if you are competing, watch out for it general. If you are reading this and work in coffee, it was a great reminder tat part of your training program is to discuss and teach the how’s and why’s of how to hold a cup – no fingers on the rim!

In the end, after two intense rounds, these guys got through to the finals.

Alex from Originb

Zain from Saint Espresso

Zoe from Prufrock

Nick from Coffee Lab