When Anthony Douglas, a 31-year-old barista trainer from Axil Roasters, won the 2022 World Barista Champion title last month he became only the third Australian (and the first Melburnian) to do so.

It may have been his debut appearance on the international stage, but it took him seven years to get there, placing fourth, third, and runner-up (an agonising three times) in the national feeder event, the Australian Barista Championship.

“I just felt overwhelmed with emotion,” he says of the moment he was announced world champ. “I did cry a little bit, which I don’t normally do. The atmosphere of the crowd, and everyone sort of cheering me on – it felt amazing.”

The event is the Olympics of competitive coffee, a strange, high-stakes game in which 50 competitors from across the globe do battle by presenting four espressos, four milk-based coffees and four signature coffee drinks to a panel of certified world judges in under 15 minutes.

Rules for the event – held in September at the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre as part of the 2022 Melbourne International Coffee Expo – run to more than 40 pages; baristas spend months and even years training, backed by teams of up to a dozen people; and campaigns can cost as much as $100,000.

So how did Douglas do it? He was born and raised in Noble Park, the eldest of four children whose parents worked in IT and kindergarten teaching. He dropped out of high school before finishing year 11. After a two-year Bakers Delight apprenticeship, he moved to Sydney and served coffee for the first time aged 18 from behind the deli counter of a Spanish restaurant.

“I’d make four or five coffees a day. I just really loved the process … that was the initial attraction. I just liked going through the motions.”

At 19, Douglas returned to Melbourne to be closer to family and friends, and applied for barista jobs. He first came across Axil Roasters in 2015 when a barista at his cafe served him an Axil espresso.

“I was just mind-blown because I had never had a coffee experience like that before. It really helped open my eyes to what coffee could be.”

Soon after, he applied for work at Axil’s Hawthorn flagship store and boss Dave Makin hired him on the spot.

Without knowing it, Douglas had landed in the unofficial institute for competitive coffee.

“I’m a very competitive person by nature,” says Makin, a racing car enthusiast and 2008 World Barista Championship runner-up in Copenhagen who encourages staff to compete in regional coffee competitions each year.

Douglas gradually honed his craft, and six months out of this year’s event he began preparing a serious campaign with coach Jack Simpson and coffee roaster Matt Crowley. The team tasted 100 coffees before settling on El Diviso, an Anaerobic Natural Sidra from a farm in Huila, Columbia.

Meanwhile, Douglas perfected techniques including “cryodesiccation”, a process that concentrates milk flavours by 900 per cent, rehearsed his presentation script and settled on backing music (including a Muse cover of Duran Duran’s Hungry Like the Wolf).

Douglas believes 80 per cent of his success came from simply making the best-quality coffee he could and describing it well. That said, there was also his conviction he was always going to win.

“I just couldn’t fathom anyone else working as hard as myself and the team had worked. I say that with zero arrogance whatsoever. I just thought we put everything into it this year and I couldn’t imagine another result.”

Anthony Douglas’ tips for making world-class coffee at home

Follow the recipe

“Always a good idea. It’s worthwhile picking up a cheap set of scales so you know how much coffee you’re putting in and how much coffee you’re getting out in the cup, as well as your contact time. It depends where you get your coffee from but if you’re buying from, say, a local roaster, you can ask them for a recipe and they’ll be able to help you out with that.”

Grind your coffee fresh

“Once you grind coffee it does tend to go stale and de-gas very quickly.”

Buy good quality coffee

“I know that might sound obvious but if you’re buying a cheap sort of coffee from the supermarket, you probably won’t get as good results as buying something roasted by a reputable roaster. So, make sure you’re working with a good-quality raw product.”

Go with the flow

“A lot of quality in coffee actually comes from the water flowing through the bed of coffee evenly. So, it might be worthwhile taking a class just so you can learn fundamentals of dosing and distribution. So, how you’re actually putting the coffee into the handle and how to settle that coffee. It’s [got to be] nice and flat, and you’re preparing an even bed that will ensure that the water flows through evenly.”

Get forensic with dosing

“You want to make sure that you’re dosing the coffee as evenly as possible into the basket. So, if you’re dosing straight from a grinder, that would generally look like you’ll be dosing a little pyramid in the centre, a nice, even mound, not too close to one side or another. That will set you up to distribute the coffee well.

Distribute or die

“I believe using pins is one of the best ways of distributing coffee evenly. [Douglas used a mechanised version of something called the Weiss Distribution Technique on the world stage.] Ideally, if you are using pins, they’ve got to be very thin, because you don’t want to create pockets or holes in the coffee that could cause channelling. If you don’t have access to a tool like that, you can do what’s called palm collapsing, which is where you tap the side of the handle with your palm and just settle the coffee as flat as you can.”

Get in the tamp zone

“Tamping prevents the water from flowing through too quickly, which allows the coffee to saturate with water while still providing resistance. This extends the contact time, allowing the water to fully extract all the compounds it needs from that coffee. Tamp the coffee down until it stops moving. Any further pressure is redundant. Coffee will only compact to a certain point but if you apply any more pressure, there’s a risk that you might tamp unevenly or inconsistently.

“Having said that, I would always err to tamping a little heavier. Although it’s redundant to a certain point, at least you know you’ve fully compacted the coffee. I use my body weight. If I’m tamping, I’m side-on to the bench, the handle is parallel to me and I’m just literally leaning into it.”

Watch your water

“Water doesn’t make a massive difference. We’re quite lucky in Melbourne in that we’ve got water that is quite soft and for the most part it’s pretty good for making coffee. And if you’re buying coffee from a Melbourne-based roaster, most likely the water from your tap will be suitable for that coffee. It does change depending on the region [roasters are roasting for] but not a whole lot.”

Clean your machine

“You won’t have to do it as much at home as a cafe because you’re not putting as much coffee through, but I would run some espresso machine cleaner – a chemical or a cleaning agent that’s designed to clean espresso machines – to remove coffee oils that have built up. I would do that once a week at home. And every day, when you’re finished making coffee, I do what’s called a water back flush, where you’re running water through the system to help clean and remove any oils that are built up.”

This story was first published in Good Food on 11 October 2022.