Image of Richard Legg's hands pouring milk into a coffee.

How hard can it be to make a really good cup of cof­fee? The cor­rect answer, as any Wel­ling­to­ni­an knows, is “Really bloody hard!” A good barista is a thing to be cher­ished, and the best of the best come togeth­er every year for the Huhta­maki New Zea­l­and Barista Cham­pi­on­ship to show off their skills and find one win­ner to stand tall for Kiwi cof­fee cul­ture at the World Barista Cham­pi­on­ship in Vienna.

Image of Richard Legg operating an espresso machine.

Thanks to the cham­pi­on­ship organ­isers, we got to spend some time hanging out with one of this year’s com­pet­it­ors, Richard Legg from Cof­fee Supreme.

Image of Richard Legg dosing an espresso handle.

Back in 2009, Richard was spend­ing his gap year mak­ing cof­fee in his home town of Feild­ing when the Supreme account rep for the cafe where he worked encour­aged him to enter the cham­pi­on­ship. He came first in the Wel­ling­ton region heat and sixth over­all. Now, after a couple of years at uni­ver­sity, real­ising halfway through his degree that he was going to go back to mak­ing cof­fee as soon as he gradu­ated and so there was really no reas­on not to cut to the chase, he’s sad­dling up for anoth­er go. The Wellingtonista’s video­graph­er-in-res­id­ence, Tom A., and I listened intently as he told us how it’s done:

You can find Richard at Cof­fee Supreme on Hop­per Street Monday–Friday until 12.30, and the Huhta­maki New Zea­l­and Barista Cham­pi­on­ship is being held at the Michael Fowl­er Centre from 23–25 March: heats on Fri­day and Sat­urday, with finals and semi-finals on Sunday. Spec­tat­ors are wel­come and entry is free.