SCAE tests new competition formats for Copenhagen

1st May 2008

The SCAE Competitions Committee met in Manheim in late April to try and solve a positive problem: How to make the Latte Art and Coffee in Good Spirits competitions faster, fairer, more exciting to watch, and more-media friendly.

We needed to do this, as the number of competitors is rapidly increasing. The competitions as such remain the same, withsimplified judge sheets and the same open judging as before. The news is that we will now have four stations instead of two, and there will be two baristas competing at the same time, with two sets of judges. To ensure fair results, the judges will rotate, and both the highest and lowest scores will be deleted.

For the final, the six best competitors wil bring their scores from the semi-final with them. They will then start in the final one by one, in reverse order--Number 6 starts and Number 1 ends the final. The results will be published immediately after each competitor, and the audience and the media will be able to see for themselves how the results unfold, until we have a worthy winner.

A trial run of the new system was organised by the SCAE Competitions Committee, with valuable assistance from competitors and judges from Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Norway, Iceland and the UK. The event itself attracted both coffee enthusiasts and serious media attention, including regional TV with some four million viewers.

The SCAE Committee got valuable feedback in this trial run enabling it to improve the Copenhagen event even further.

Thanks a lot to the baristas, who proved they were such good sports when competing. Without them there would not have been a trial run, nor a more exciting Competitions schedule in Copenhagen.--Alf Kramer, Competitions Committee