Company: Independent
The Signature Drink: "Brew", Ko Pandan

Describe your favourite coffee creation or technique
My favorite coffee technique is actually removing microfines from coffee grounds by sifting it. In cone-style brewers, it actually gives great clarity and sweetness, because the stalling due to fine migration is no longer present, or dramatically reduces the effects. 

How do you share your passion for coffee with others, whether within the industry or the wider community?
Many times, just talking about what I do generates curiosity in people, and that gives me the chance to brew for them. The brewed coffee can take over the conversation from there. 

What unique skills or perspective do you bring to the competition?
I think my Filipino-American palate offers a diverse flavour perspective in coffee profiling, as well as creativity in the Signature Drink category. My brew approaches have strongly been influenced by Jonathan Gagne's The Physics of Filter Coffee, and so I have less of a "cafe-trained" system of brewing coffee and more of a physics of extraction approach to brewing coffee. 

Brew, Ko Pandan by Mitchell Celicious: