The 37-year-old has been making coffee for almost six years.
Originally from Korea, she started working at a cafe in Auckland as a way to improve her English skills.
She has been employed as a barista at Dry Dock Cafe on Wharf St in Tauranga for two-and-half-years.
A self-confessed "coffeeholic", Ms Kim said she loved everything about it and would drink up to five cups of coffee herself a day alternating between espressos and flat whites.
Ms Kim said she loved competing, meeting other baristas and learning new tricks of the trade.
Dry Dock Cafe owner Sandra Johnson said everyone at the cafe was proud of what Ms Kim had achieved because they had seen the hard work she had put in.