Love to the point of obsession is a great way to describe what Greeks around the world feel for their coffee.
The breakfast staple of many is a cup of good coffee and a cigarette. There’s nothing that gets you more annoyed in the morning than receiving a sub par cup of coffee, and it shows in both Australian and Greek cultures.
All good coffee cultures have an appreciation for the smell, the taste and the art of coffee making, and that’s what the Melbourne International Coffee Expo aims to represent.
Last weekend, hundreds of the world’s best coffee makers descended to Melbourne to compete in a number of coffee making competitions, and Greece was widely represented.
This year, Tania Konstantinova represented Greece in the World Latte Art Championships, and made quite an impression.
Although she didn’t get into the final, Tania used a number of fish, swans and flower designs to show off her home country and her style.
The half-Greek, half-Ukrainian purple-haired beauty definitely caught a lot of attention in the crowd, but it was her slight of hand pouring technique that had everyone wide eyed.
Amazingly, Tania was never interested in becoming a barista, but her love of coffee pushed her into the industry.
“I wanted to be a ship captain,” she tells Neos Kosmos.
The 32-year-old’s ability was something that kept pushing her higher and higher into the industry. After taking a short course in the art of coffee making, it took her just a year to become the country’s best, winning first place in the national coffee making competition.
Working at speciality coffee shop Thiseio in Athens, she’s been immersed in hundreds of coffee varieties and understands how important a good barista is in making a good coffee.
“For me a good coffee needs to have a very balanced taste, and that comes from a talented barista,” she says.
Sadly, the client’s requests might alter that taste. She says the weirdest request she ever got was to serve a coffee in an ashtray.
Last year’s winner, Australia’s Rie Moustakas re-entered the competition, but came fourth, with Taiwan’s Jhih-Ting Jhong taking out top prize.
Also hosted at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo was the World’s Cup Tasters Championships, a more taste based tournament.
The aim is to demonstrate speed, skill, and accuracy in distinguishing the taste differences in speciality coffees.
For the competition, three cups are placed in a triangle, with 2 cups being identical coffees and one cup being a different coffee. Using skills of smell, taste, attention and experience, the cupper has to identify the odd cup in the triangle as quickly as they can.
Greece’s Dimitri Papaioannou represented the country in the tough competition but was bested by Taiwan’s Pang-Yu Liu.
Dimitri has travelled the world on a taste journey, and has become a coffee and cocktail expert, taking the title of a master barista/bartender.
Although bartending came first, his professional obsession with coffee started in 2008 after he entered into different tutorials and courses in Chicago and Amsterdam.
That’s where he says he found coffee in its purest forms.
“Only with science and with knowledge from experience can you get the right finish,” he tells Neos Kosmos.
“The most delicious cup of coffee you can get following some techniques that are applied during the production process, but they are always based on the product.”
The split talent in bartending and coffee making has helped him distinguish himself amongst the world’s best.
As a cup taster, he says the only way to become the best is to constantly keep tasting different coffees to keep the palette clean.
At least in Greece he has no trouble with that.
“In Greece coffee is one of the most important things in daily life,” he says.
“It’s about enjoying life, chatting and relaxing all around one cup of coffee.”