Canadian Barista Championship, Toronto, Sep 16-17

Just a quick late post with the results of the Canadian Barista Championship held in Toronto on September 16-17 in conjunction with the Canada Coffee & Tea Show.

The results of the finals (6 best baristi from the open round and 2 regional champions) are as follows:

1st	Mike Yung	Caffe Artigiano	Vancouver, BC
2nd	Cady Wu	Wicked Cafe	Vancouver, BC
3rd	Anthony Benda	Café Santé Veritas	Montreal, Quebec
4th	Colter Jones	Caffè Artigiano	Vancouver, BC
5th	Mark Krause	Espresso Post	Collingwood, Ontario
6th	Derek Lucas	Buon Amici’s Coffee	Victoria, BC
7th	Brette Richard	2% Jazz	Victoria, BC
8th	Kimberly Staveley	Matter of Taste	Kitchener, Ontario

Both Mike Yung, the winner, and Anthony Benda, the 3rd place finisher, are first time competitors.  Colter Jones, the defending 2006 CNBC Champion, finished 4th. Colter had placed a strong 7th at the World Barista Championship held in Tokyo in July. Mike Yung will represent Canada at the 2008 WBC.

With the Canadian Barista Championship, Terra Keramik continued to supply several competing baristi with our line of handcrafted espresso cups and cappuccino cups. We appreciate the trust placed in our products by Anthony Benda (Café Santé Veritas), Colter Jones (Caffè Artigiano), Andrew Legg (Transcend Coffee), and Jeremie Thompson (Bridgehead Coffeehouses), all of whom competed with our cups.

Andrew Legg and Poul Mark have started a Transcend Coffee blog with photos of the Canadian Barista Championship. Also check out the Dwelltime coffee blog of Barrett Jones, himself a top Canadian barista and brother of Colter.

Several people have posted competition photos on flickr, including Liz Clayton (who wrote a nice article for Barista Magazine), Rich Westerfield of Aldo Coffee, Poul Mark of Transcend Coffee, and James Hoffmann, the current WBC champion.