I am utterly delighted/proud/so happy to get to post that Anette won the World Cup Tasting competition here in Antwerp today!

For those of you new to the competition the format is triangle tests.  In a round a cupper must pick the odd cup out of the three in 8 different sets.  Once they have settled on 8 individual cups the rest are cleared and they must then lift up their chosen cup in turn to see if it has the red marking underneath indicating they got it right.   It gets quite tense.

19 national entrants compete once and then the top 6 go into a semi final.  Those with the most right progress and it goes to time in case of tied scores.  The difficulty of the tests also increases the further you progress.

Anette’s first round was a maximum score in a very quick time (the only person faster was last year’s winner – Gloria from Guatemala).  In the semis she missed one bowl, but got through to the final 3 on her quick time.

The finals were great – the atmosphere was a lot of fun and it really (really!) gets tense towards the end.  It was Jacques from Brazil, Arni from Iceland and Anette.  It came down to the final bowl – if Anette got it wrong then her slower time put her third, but if it was right she won.  I’ve never been so pleased to see red marker pen on the bottom of a cupping bowl…

I will post a full set of pictures to flickr when I get back – it is off to celebrate at the barista party tonight – I will take lots of pictures!  As for the latte art (which I compete in on Sunday) and the Coffee in good spirits competition (our entrant is Paul “squeeky” Miekle-Janney) then either the pressure is off or the bar is set insanely high.  I’ll keep you posted.

Again – huge congratulations to Anette!