Pete Licata and his all-Hawaiian "layered" espresso has made it to the final 6:

Javier Garcia, SPAIN
Miki Suzuki, JAPAN
Matt Perger, AUSTRALIA
Alejandro Mendez, EL SALVADOR
John Gordon, UNITED KINGDOM
Pete Licata, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

Live streaming Sunday beginning 1:00 pm EDT. http://www.livestream.com/worldbaristachampionshiplive. (12:00 Bogota time, UCT -5).

There is also a pretty cool video on the site of Stephen Morrissey touring the engineering and production facilities that were used to design and now manufacture the Simonelli Aurelia. In case anyone thinks it's easy to design a high-end espresso machine, it's not.

And the winner is:

ALEJANDRO MENDEZ, EL SALVADOR (710.5)

2nd Pete Licata, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (659.5)
3rd Matt Perger, AUSTRALIA (659)
4th Javier Garcia, SPAIN (631.5)
5th Miki Suzuki, JAPAN (629.5)
6th John Gordon, UNITED KINGDOM (613.5)

Yes, that concept is amazing. I would have loved to see it first hand...and to taste! So well done, by all.

Ok, so I had to ask:

Why do the judges take a spoon and smear it through the foam?

d

Marshall wrote:There is also a pretty cool video on the site of Stephen Morrissey touring the engineering and production facilities that were used to design and now manufacture the Simonelli Aurelia. In case anyone thinks it's easy to design a high-end espresso machine, it's not.

I could not find the video on the site, but I think I found it on youtube:

This documentary will show you how Nuova Simonelli makes its espresso machines. Stephen Morrissey, winner of the 2008 World Barista Championship, will accompany viewers on a journey into the world of Nuova Simonelli. In line with the companys historic philosophy of transparency and openness, Nuova Simonelli has let its story be told, revealing all of its secrets.

All that hard work and money to come up with the worthiest farmer / origin / terroir / blah blah spiel to promote Nespresso. Cos those guys really care. Awesome.

I don't know how the scores works. There are big differences between rounds, which seems strange to me.

Alejandro Mendez
Round 1: 637
Semi: 636.5
Final: 710.5

Pete Licata
Round 1: 598
Semi: 712.5
Final: 659.5

There are jumps of +100 points for the same barista between rounds. Highest score is for Licata on Semi Finals with 712.5 points, he also has the lowest score on round 1.

Being a world championship I expect extreme repeatability in the barista's routines...... seems not? Why the huge differences?

While there may be good consistency between a barista's routines, there is a distinct lack of consistency between judges' scores. There was likely a different judging panel for each round. Different panel, different agendas...

Competitors will often raise their game or crumble as the stakes get higher too.