Clover recently sponsored the KZN Regional Barista Championships with fresh Clover Full Cream milk, ensuring that baristas in the Latte Art and Barista divisions had the best quality milk for their creations.
The KZN Barista Championships was the last of the Regional Coffee Competitions hosted by the Speciality Coffee Association of South Africa (SCASA), before all the finalists headed to Johannesburg for the Nationals in September where the South African Champions were decided. In the Latte Art division it was Arno Els from Colombo Coffee & Tea who triumphed victorious over his colleague Daniel Erasmus, in a final performance that had the audiences at the Good Food & Wine Show cheering like crazy. The Latte Art division sees baristas pouring two identical designs for the panel of judges: one a free-pour set, where they create the pattern from pouring the steamed and stretched Clover milk into an espresso base, while the designed-pour set allows the baristas to manipulate the foam and crema in the cup to create an intricate design. The baristas were judged on both visual design and their technical abilities behind the espresso machine. Craig Charity from Lineage Coffee took the KZN title from Nicodemus Nabakwe (Avanti Coffee) and Wayne Oberholzer (Origin Coffee Roasting) in the Barista division.