I’m so totally poor, but here I am, still doing food and coffee things. If it makes me feel any better, I did pre-pay for these tickets when I was also poor! The earlybird tickets were only $10, and there was going to be a latte art competition, so why not. It’s an excuse to take pictures if nothing else.
There were actually quite a few coffee stalls, and one was doing espressos and piccolos for free! I was lured in by a nitro cold brew sample, but since I don’t like cold coffees, I decided to try out a pic, for a nice pic.
This was from the Cold Matter/Black Matter coffee stand. So pretty!
Explored some tea options too. Nice sencha, tie guan yin, and buddha’s tears. Decided to skip the peppermint and the goji berry one.
Some nice takeaway cups and pretty lights!
Since this was in Crown’s grand ballroom, you kind of have to look up.
I don’t like the look of most grinders, but I think the Mythos is starting to grow on me. This is where the latte art competition was, and somehow I managed to end up standing right at the front. It was a bit of a pain getting the right lens for this, I was carrying all three of mine, but I found the 60mm performed the best here, though to take pictures of people, I did have to switch back to my 19mm quite frequently, but since I can do this quite quickly, I found this combination worked better than my original zoom lens.
See? Taking pictures of people taking pictures. The best!
Everyone was amazed at how calm these baristas looked, but when you saw their hands, you could see how nervous they were! The hands, so much shaking!
And of course I love taking pictures of hands, hands are really pretty because of how complex the joints are (at least to me since I know nothing about anatomy). Plus each barista has their own style of how they pour and hold their cups, which is super cool to observe!
So many pretty pictures!!! I love my barista’s branding on his jugs, too. He didn’t make it to the finals, but I still love his stuff!
I’m actually glad there weren’t too many swans in this competition. I’ve found that most places in Perth pour swans to the point where I’m sick of seeing them, and I miss my several layer rosettas. This time, there were some nice flowers. And these blobs, which came out really nicely after etching:
I’m not a fan of etching, but I admit, you can get some cool designs out of it! This comp essentially became a battle of the dragons, and this fantastic round had double dragons!
Close one! The only round to have divided judges too, every other round was unanimous!
That concentration…
Runner up design was pretty cool!
And the winner :D
I did look around some more and sample some ice creams and buy some cakes, but nothing that came out as really pretty pictures. So here are some shots of the Crown!
No escape! Muahahhahaha
And an obligatory celebrity chef photo.