Axl Chan from The Bunker Café, Sydney took out the Breville Latte Art Smackdown held at The Rocks Aroma Festival in Sydney yesterday. Returning for its 18th year, the event saw crowd numbers reach over 100,000. Visitors sampled different roasts and brews from over 60 stalls of coffee roasters, tea, domestic coffee machines and fine foods.
Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority creative producer, Michael Cohen said, “The art of the barista continued to inspire awe in the highly anticipated Breville’s Latte Art Smackdown. An annual highlight, this competition showcased the delightful and speedy café craft of baristas in knockout challenges.”
The Australian Specialty Coffee Association (ASCA) also brought together coffee celebrities, Sasa Sestic, the World Barista Champion, and Habib Maarbani, the NSW Barista Champion. Onlookers were treated not only to a demonstration of Sasa’s signature winning cup, but also Habib’s delicate latte art.
Cohen said Aroma “brought a little something for everyone as Vintage Coffee Carts, Cosmic Coffee or Solar Hot Chocolate at the Sydney Observatory gave visitors a new dimension to indulge in their inner wannabee barista. Sydneysiders relished the opportunity to see what’s brewing in their future with the Argyle Oracle Tealeaf readings, a series of stimulating 15-minute sessions that added an extra teaspoon of magic to the Festival.”
Breville returned as a Major Sponsor of Aroma and in 2015 and again leveraged their sponsorship through the creation of a latte art competition, the ‘Breville Latte Art Smackdown’ using domestic espresso machines. Both the 2014 event and this year’s event was a major success for Breville, meeting with hundreds of coffee enthusiasts as well as creating an intensely entertaining and fast paced professional competition. Breville used the event to showcase its signature coffee machine, the Breville Oracle both onstage and at their Oracle demonstration showroom at the Cleland Bond foyer. Over 1000 festival goers tested their own abilities in using the machine and creating their own ‘latte art’.