“…Australian coffee industry’s most celebrated coffee award, judged by industry peers via a blind tasting process that went over Five days and saw over 700 coffee blends entered” - Phillip Di Bella

Once a year, the nation’s top coffee companies gather to compete for The CSR Golden Bean Roaster Competition– the southern hemisphere’s largest coffee competition, where the nation’s top roasters go head to head and put their creativity to the test in a bid to find Australia’s best coffee.  This year Di Bella Coffee outshined over 700 entries to take the win with their original competition blends.

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Left to Right Daylan Isai, Ryan Wesener, Anne Cooper, Phillip Di Bella and Daniel Russel

Anne Cooper, Ryan Wesener, and Daylan Isai (Di Bella Coffee) have been working on their entries since July 2009, researching and sourcing quality beans from all corners of the globe, with innumerable hours spent blending, roasting, and tasting to fine-tune the perfect cup.  Their entries were Ali Reserve (winning gold in the milk-based category), Getafix (taking silver in both the filter category and the retail filter category).  The team just missed out on Bronze in the espresso category by one point; ironically they won the overall competition by a single point.

“We are so grateful to be working for a company that gives us the freedom to experiment and test our own boundaries in this kind of competition.  Phillip is very supportive of all of us and encourages us to better ourselves at every opportunity and this is a perfect example of that – This would never have been possible without him” Anne Cooper, Di Bella Coffee

The CSR Golden Bean is an annual competition held in Port Macquarie NSW where roasters take their favourite coffee blends and submit them in the category of their choice (e.g. Espresso, milk-based, filter etc. – 7 in total). From there, the coffees are made by the country’s leading baristi and judged by their industry peers; some of the most discerning palates in the industry.  This year the barista line-up included Tim Adams (2009 Australian champion), David Makin (2007 Australian champion), Anne Cooper (2006, 2007, 2008 QLD champion), and Luke Schilling (The Barista Effect).

Article by Michael P