Two Tauranga baristas are competing at the Meadow Fresh New Zealand latte art championship this Sunday in Auckland.

Matt Ross of Excelso Coffee Roasters and Anna Jiang of Zone Café have made it through to this year's final of the latte art competition.

This is Matt's first year competing at the latte art champs.

'I competed in the Barista Champs earlier this year for the first time also. I have won other smaller latte art comps including one held by Atomic Coffee Roasters in Auckland,” says Matt.

Matt Ross preparing for the NZ latte art championships.

As part of the application process of the competition, contestants submitted photos of three different original latte art pours.

When the day of the competition arrives they must replicate each of those photos twice.

The latte art champs this weekend comprises of two separate rounds, a preliminary round and a final round.

During the preliminary round, the baristas will have eight minutes to create two identical free pour lattes and two identical designer lattes, replicating the photographs.

The highest scoring six competitors will then compete in the final, only having 10 minutes to create two identical samples of 'art in a cup” for three different beverages, two separate sets of matching free pour lattes and one set of matching designer pattern lattes.

There are four different judges - two visual, one technical and one head judge.

This competition is judged on how the latte looks so the taste won't matter.

Anna, who is also the owner of Zone Café, is looking forward to this weekend's competition and having a bit of fun.

'I love testing myself with different and intricate latte designs,” says Anna.

'It's a good thing I'm used to early starts here as I believe I'm expected to be there and practicing at 6.40am.”

The winner of this competition will become the NZ latte art champion and will get to represent NZ at the world championships in November in Brazil.