Hitting Right Notes

Retha van Rhijn is the 2023 South African Cup Tasters Champion and a woman of many talents

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Although Retha already has this amazing accomplishment under her belt, her journey in coffee has only just begun. She works with Urban Brew Barista Academy based in Bloemfontein, Free State, with the current South Africa Barista Champion, so she is getting an incredible coffee education and she loves sharing her skills. She will be representing SA on the World Stage in Greece in June this year.

Cup Tasters is often seen as the easiest' competition to start with as it requires the least amount of investment of time and money to practice and enter? What was your experience of the prep before Regionals and Nationals?

Cup Tasters definitely require a lot less money to prepare and less preparation time and that is one of the aspects that makes it great, because it is approachable for any coffee person who would like to start competing. Coffee competitions can become very expensive very quickly and to have a category that gives competitors experience in the competition arena without breaking your bank is super important, especially if we want the competitions to grow in the future.

But with that being said, it does not mean that Cup Tasters does not have any prep. I approached regionals with much the same view as most people, that it is a lesser category, and only ran a few sets a week before the regional competition. However, in preparation for Finals we had a video call with 4-time SA Cup Tasters Champion, Donovan McLagan, and after that my approach to prep totally changed and became a lot more focused. I changed my diet, ran up to three sets a day, timed each set, filmed myself while running sets to understand my own body language and focused on where on the table I got most cups right and wrong. That is the beauty of Cup Tasters, it is approachable yet so intricate.