What an amazing day for United States Barista Champion Heather Perry!! Arriving early at the Big Sight, Heather had the opportunity to pull some shots and steam some milk at the WBC café where barista champions volunteer to make drinks for their adoring and seriously under- caffeinated bloggers and public.

Heather competed at 1:30, which gave her all morning to watch how her fellow competitors were shaping up. She was calm and confident up to her prep and competition time. Thankfully, the grinder she carried all the way from California ended up actually working. She was very grateful to the Swedish team (and expressed that to them on stage) for helping her identify and fix the problem yesterday.

See video of Heather in action!

Heather’s performance went off without a hitch. For those of who were there at the USBC, Heather was just as polished and smooth as her performances there, but there were a few changes made. First was that she changed the recipe for her signature drink slightly. The final drink combined cream infused with cinnamon, sugar, vanilla bean, lemon and orange with two layers of espresso mixed with sugar and egg yolks (which are, according to Heather, very consistently high quality in Japan).

The second change was that Heather explained a little bit more to the judges and the audience about where her passion for coffee comes from. “When I compete in the U.S., everybody knows me and I don’t have to work as hard to make sure my coffee passion comes through in my performance,” Heather tells me, “but no one knows me here.” Even for those of us who know and love Heather, it was nice to hear how her first trip to origin, Costa Rica in 2003, inspired the girl who had spent year’s in her family’s coffee business to make coffee her life. With Heather’s dedication, ambition, and intelligence, she would have been successful at anything she chose to do. Luckily for the coffee world and her co-workers and customers at Coffee Klatch, Heather chose to be a barista!

Satisfied with her performance, Heather spent the rest of the day mingling and socializing. 5:30 came soon enough and it was time for the finals announcement. Along with the barista champions from Switzerland, New Zealand, Brazil, the U.K. and host country Japan, Heather was named one of the 6 finalists!!!

Team Klatch left shortly thereafter, in order to rest and refresh for tomorrow’s big performance. We wish her the best of luck and check back tomorrow to find out how she places!

Sandy Jenkins
zacharyzachary.com