#Smackdown19 - Heat One
Friday the 13th. A full moon. 16 baristas in the first heat of #smackdown19 trying to get into the top four after two knock-out rounds to best into the finals. When I arrived at 7 pm, the pub next door to us was absolutely heaving. The footpath was PACKED with punters drinking, talking, laughing. The majority were local workers enjoying a Friday night out after a hard week. Tucked away on the sides were about 50 people waiting to get into our Eastcastle Street store to compete or just watch the first heat.
By 7:15 we had opened the doors and our judges Glenn Watson (Lead judge and photographer), Paul Ross (UK Barista Champion 2019) and wholesale manager for Kiss the Hippo and Joshua Tarlo (UK barista Champion 2018) and head of coffee at Kiss the Hippo had arrived, along with all our competitors and their supporters.
This week we had competing Elisa & Ronnie from
- Iris and June,
- Ieva from Kafi
- Ernie formerly of Taylor Street Baristas
- Carlo from Watchhouse
- Raul and Chinseng from Velasquez
- Davide from Dropshot
- Christopher and Chitkaji from Elan
- Sziszi and Thales from Compass
- Alessandro from Volcano
- and freelancers Patrick and Nophadon.
We turned the lights down and the music up and we were off. First round and first up in the competition must be hard, and even though we explained the rules in detail, we had a few baristas not quite getting there. A couple had their handles at 9 o’clock instead of 3 o’clock and another made some amazing spiders in latte art.
We had some very confident baristas who did very well and some others who perhaps underestimated the power of the stage and found it to be a bit nerve racking (can’t blame them even I get nervous). One barista had possibly the worst shakes I have ever seen which only got worse the harder they tried to control them, but they poured their drinks to a superb and very understanding round of applause.
In the end we finished with this four through to the finals at Prufrock on October 11.
- Christopher from Elan
- Ernie from Taylor Street
- Alessandro from Volcano
- Chitkaji from Elan
This Friday we come back for Heat 2 and another 16 baristas from London and beyond competing for cash, prizes and glory.
Most importantly, can we please say thank you to our amazing sponsors for this year. It really is an amazing prize pool from these legends.
Coffee Hit, Square Mile, Origin, Compass, Brewed By Hand, Estate Dairy, VA Machinery and Kaffeine.
Hope to see you. Watch our instagram stories or live feed each Friday night.
