13th Uganda national barista championship starts

COFFEE CHAMPIONSHIP

The Uganda Coffee Development Authority (UCDA) has kicked off its 13^th Uganda National Barista Championship preliminaries with 38 participants and will end with national finals.

Many people specifically coffee farmers across the country are not the only ones that live off coffee as a cash crop but also baristas.

This competition is held annually and this will be the 13^th of its kind with participants from different cafes, hotels, shops, and students from institutions.

The Promotion and Training Officer UCDA, Clare Rwakatogoro said the activity will take three days with a selection of competitors who will qualify for the semi-finals and then finals.

"We have kicked off with the preliminaries with participants from different cafes, hotels, shops, and students from schools participating in this activity. They will make espressos and milk beverages and will then be assessed by judges who will select the winners to qualify for the semi-finals," Rwakatogoro said.

According to Rwakatogoro, the main objective of the activity is for capacity building amongst participants for purposes of serving high-quality coffee in the country.

Other objectives are to promote coffee among the youth, job creation for the young generation, promoting coffee at both country and world level and value addition for the coffee product.

However, Rwakatogoro noted that as an authority they are faced with a number of challenges in regards to the competition citing equipment knowledge by the participants especially when it comes to Africa and world levels, few participants and limited representation from other regions.

"Most of the participants that we have are from the central region mainly and we don't have those coming from other regions to participate in this event. This makes it less popular in those other regions for involvement," she explained.

One of the judges, Peter Bwengye noted some of the considerations that are to be observed during the exercise as espresso evaluation, milk beverage content, customer service skills and overall impression of the competitor.

"We were also observing the technical aspect of how participants handled the machine, stage management, cleanliness, consistency, and appearance because of they all matter for evaluation," Bwengye expounded.

He added that he was happy that there were more females this year compared to other years where it was more of men with less representation of women.

"Usually we have always had a number of boys with fewer girls engaging in this exercise but this time, we are happy there are a number of girls participating which is a good thing," Bwengye noted.

Saleh Nusula, one of the barista competitors from Kibuli said she was disappointed by her lack of confidence in front of the judges but hoped to go through to the semi-finals.

"I didn't have enough confidence which was bad because I was shivering but I believe it was because it's my first time in these competitions but I hope to make it," Nusula said.

Lawrence Onyango who works with Louis Drusfus Company said the activity went well for him because he was well versed with the machine.

"Am confident that I will make it to the semifinals because I did not face any problem with the machine and also I have been doing this at my workplace," Onyango emphasized.

Onyango added that he was happy that the rest of the people would learn the other functions of coffee and promote it.

Sandra Zalwango, also a competitor said the exercise was smooth except for the milk steaming which she felt was not good enough.

"Am well versed with steaming cold milk but in this case, the milk was hot which made the steaming hard. Besides that everything was smooth for me and I expect to make it to the semi-finals," Zalwango said.