L-R, Takahito Koyanagi, Stuart Hargie, Woo Hyung Lee and May Chen
Photo credits Yongzhi Zhang @jjang.yougjii
It was packed to the rafters last Friday night at L’affare Melrose in Auckland where a record 34 coffee cuppers plus two that were convinced to have a go, accurately and quickly slurped their way through delicious coffee. Impressively, this was the first time that all four finalists had posted eight out of eight in the open round.
The top four were Takahito Koyanagi of Toasted Espresso in Auckland, Cup Tasters Champion of 2016; Woo Hyung Lee of Camper Coffee who entered at the last minute; May Chan of Story Coffee in Auckland and Stu Hargie, representing JDE and previous Cup Taster Champion who had decided to enter on the day!
The final announcement was tense as each cup was revealed.
With a score of 8/8 in 4.11 minutes, our new champion was revealed.
Congratulations to our 2018 Cup Tasters Champion Stuart Hargie who is “happy to have won again”. He says “It’s an honour to be competing with such talented people. There were such high scores this year.”
Stu is “excited and nervous about Brazil but I know I have New Zealand behind me so that helps”
Congratulations to everyone involved!