Otane barista Tyler Ritchie roasts competition at Innovation in Origin in China

Former Otane resident working with what she knows best, coffee. Photo / Supplied

Former Otane resident Tyler Ritchie's love of coffee has taken her across the globe, resulting in second place in a coffee roasting competition in China.

She entered the Australian National Roasting Competition earlier this year and came seventh. That placing resulted in an invitation to Nanjing in China to take part in the Innovation in Origin coffee competition.

The top 30 Chinese competitors from 200 took part, along with six competitors from regions around Australia, with Ritchie the only female out of those Australian competitors.

Ritchie came second overall and was blown away with the result.

"I was really proud to win for the women in the industry. And to have my boss there supporting me, I was stoked to do him proud too. The female Chinese roasters were massive fan girls which was pretty overwhelming but it was a good feeling that I could inspire them.

"Some of them waited in my hotel lobby for three hours, just to give me some of their Chinese grown coffee."

Ritchie grew up on native nursery Tree Guys where her love for growing her own produce began.

"I always got satisfaction out of planting seeds and cooking the goods."

As she lived out her childhood in Central Hawke's Bay, Ritchie started work at The Paper Mulberry Cafe, where her passion for coffee began.

She continued to work at cafes during her university years and developed strong rapports with coffee representatives and sales teams.

The 26-year-old now lives in Sydney, working for speciality coffee roastery The Little Marionette.

"I've always wanted to learn the unknown. I got an easy transfer to Sydney through a cafe I was working for in Wellington and started working for Allpress, where I would hang in and around the roastery until I was invited to apply for an assistant roaster role."

After her new-found success at the Innovation in Origin, Ritchie said she's got plenty of goals to achieve.

"I will try to win at the nationals next year, I am heading to 'origin' (the place where coffee is grown) at the end of this year to find a coffee to enter.

"Next year my goal is to get further into Green Bean buying and travel more sourcing coffee and meeting farmers, creating relationships with the farmers and buying sustainable relationship coffee.

"I want to support projects at origin, like clean water wells, help to fund new mills and volunteer on the farms."