21 Dec 2021
The journey to becoming the Australian Aeropress Champion of 2021
A little over 2 years ago, I was preparing for my very first Aeropress competition with my brewing acolyte Carlos Escobar. Back then, we already knew how important working as a team was and it also allowed us to put our coffees together and try more things. That said, the result wasn’t what we expected and with hindsight, our methodology during the preparation process wasn’t perfect. For those who are unfamiliar with the Aeropress Championship, the format is a single-elimination knock out format with 3 competitors in each pod. Judges taste all 3 coffees and designate their favourite cup, the winner moves to the next round until there is only one competitor left.
This year was a little different, due to the travel restrictions, the competition took place online and competitors had to submit their own recipe with very precise guidelines for someone to replicate it for them on the day of the competition. Initially, we were a little confused, we had to use specific water, grinder and could not use more than 18g of coffee, which means that this was completely new to us. We didn’t have any of our reference points when it comes to recipe, equipment or water. With Carlos and Josh (who also competed in the event), we ended up going back to the methodology we always follow, which is focusing on the most impactful variables first and then narrowing down to the least important ones if you have enough time and/or coffee to try.
The competition coffee was a tasty double washed Kenyan SL28 roasted by Bureaux. With that information, we had an idea of what we could get out of the coffee - Josh went for a very juicy, bright and sparkling cup and I decided to go for something rich, syrupy and sweet. By submitting 2 different expressions of this coffee, we thought this would give us the best chance to do well and go far in the competition until we found out that Josh and I were both in the same pod round 1 (sorry not sorry Josh for knocking you out!).
It’s always a great feeling to see that teamwork and a good methodical approach pay off, I’m grateful for the team that I have and to all organisers and sponsors for finding new creative ways to run the competition. Congratulations to all competitors and I look forward to the World Championships in March!
