Sometimes an idea just comes to us, one so silly that we cannot ignore it and must drop everything to make it happen – the snowman latte art throw-down of 2024 is a prime example of this.
It all started a couple of weeks back when we were in need of a bit of festive content to brighten up our instagram feed. The first half of December had been a little bit of a curveball for us; a huge number of our weekend events got cancelled over the space of several days when the latest storm hit Surrey. It’s tough for any business to lose out financially at such a vital time of the year (when spending is pretty much guaranteed), but it also means that the festive spirit doesn’t seem to kick in. Anyway, our feed was looking a little drab so I (Emily) messaged Amy to send me a nice festive looking coffee to brighten everyones day.
Amy, the wonderful barista that she is, overachieved and produced an absolutely glorious latte art snowman. Straight onto the group chat it went, and everyone was in awe. A couple of members of the chat added their snowmen from years gone by for comparison and on cue, jeers were made that a contest was underway within the chat. We’re all close enough as friends that we can give each other a bit of stick, and next thing snowmen were being sent left right and centre… to varying degrees of success.
But then, it hit us – what if we took this contest out of the group chat?
That’s when we started hatching a plan. Between us, we know enough baristas in the local area who would be down for a bit of a laugh, so we went back to instagram. A public call was put out to send your best latte art snowman in. Within a few hours, Amy raised the stakes – a prize was added into the happenings, because pride and joy apparently weren’t enough.
Pan to Friday, and we had received an entire range of snowmen from local cafes and beyond… it was time to judge.
Important things to note
- We wanted to partake ourselves, so judging wasn’t going to take place in-house
- We didn’t want any voter bias, so all snowmen were going to remain anonymous (now the contest is over, we can share names)
- We figured that the non-snowman making public should get involved, so they were going to be our voters
Round 1
We assigned each snowman a number, and used a random number generator to pair each snowman off to fight against one another. Stories uploaded and the public were given 24 hours to vote for A or B
There were some instances where one snowman absolutely stole the show – shout out to Nick from Bean & Gone who got over 95% of his vote off. Other instances were neck and neck, and had us checking the polls hourly to see who had crept into the 51% over the others 49%.
However, when the stories disappeared after 24 hours, we went to the archive to find out who was through to Round 2. Let’s give it up for the Snowmen we lost along the way.
From top left to bottom right: Evie from Coffee Can, Stefan from Bean & Gone, Laura from Coffee Can, Kate from Coffee Can, Laura 2 from Coffee Can, and Amy from Coffee Can
Round 2
We had halved the number of snowmen in our competition, and Christmas was creeping ever closer. We realised we needed to be a bit ruthless, so Round 2 became a 3 v 3 to give us two finalists. Again, we went back to the trusty random number generator to put our snowmen into two contests, and uploaded the instagram stories.
On slide one we had Leyre from Petite against Nick from Bean & Gone and Emily (from several Farnham coffee shops). Leyre had absolutely stormed Amy out of Round 1, but in Round 2 fell behind the friendly competition Nick and Emily had going between one another.
Meanwhile on slide two, we had Harry from Petite going against Mitch from Krema Guildford and Cathy from Coffee Can. With all love to Cathy’s snowman, this was a two-horse race between Harry and Mitch. In to hour 23 of the 24 hour story, the percentage was still going back and forth between first and second place.
Let’s take a look at who went out in Round 2…
From Left to Right: Leyre, Nick, Harry and Cathy
The Final
Christmas Eve – the final had arrived. It was officially Emily (from numerous Farnham coffee shops) versus Mitch from Krema. One had free-poured the entire cup, one had used endearing cocoa powder to complete the snowman with a hat. What would the public want to see most? Both snowmen used several stacks of tulips for the base, but it was down to the public to tell us which snowman was going to win the first Coffee Can Snowman Latte Art Throwdown.
A mountain of pigs in blankets, an aggressive game of Uno No Mercy and an episode of Gavin and Stacey later, it was Boxing Day and we were back on socials to take a look at the result…
Left: Mitch, Right: Emily
It was official. EMILY had won the grand Snowman Master title!
Thanks to everyone who voted on stories, we had SUCH a big response! Perhaps we’ll have to get hatching an Easter edition… any takers?