When it comes to tournament play, the only thing you can expect is the unexpected, and the first round has been exactly that, delivering some truly unbelievable upsets. In fact, of the 16 total matchups in Round One, seven games went to the underdog. Sure, batch brew was the smart money for a lower seed advancing, and oak milk latte certainly had a home court advantage of the ibrik/cezve, but nitro cold brew besting the pumpkin spice latte? Siphon beating iced vanilla latte?! These results were shocking! Stunning! Shocking and Shunning!!!
Nonetheless, the people have spoken. With over 50,000 total votes cast, the Sweet 16 has been set, and hoo boy are there going to be some matchups to watch. First-ranked Espresso will face its real test against number 16 Cortado. Number 6 Mocha taking on 11 seed Chemex has big-time late-bracket implications. But the most anticipated match has to be V60 versus Macchiato, number 7 versus number 10.
This is where the rubber meets the road, folks, where the coffee drinks just happy to make it this far are welcome to exit stage left and let the real contenders duke it out. The action picks back up Monday on the Sprudge Instagram, where we’ll be posting four matchups a day in our stories. So stay tuned, this thing is just getting started!
As for me, welp, with iced vanilla latte being out, I think this bracket is officially busted.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
