Kelly placed fifth at the World Barista Championship 2017 in South Korea at the weekend.

The Canberran battled it out against national champions of Hong Kong, USA, UK, Japan and Canada in the championship event at CafeShow in Seoul. Britain's Dale Harris was named world champion.

Kelly secured a place in the competition when he won the Australian Barista Championship at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo in April.

It was the second year in a row he took out top honours at the national event, the first time an Australian has achieved the feat, and the third year in a row an Ona Coffee barista has taken out the award.

Kelly was trained by Ona Coffee founder Sasa Sestic, who was named world barista champion in 2015.

In a social media post on Sunday, Ona Coffee employees said they were "so proud" of their colleague.

Kelly used a green-tip geisha coffee from Finca Deborah in Volcán, Panama, produced by Jamison Savage, in his finals competition.

In his espresso, he used flavours of orange blossom, rose petal, orange and strawberry. His milk-based coffee featured strawberry and caramel.

For his signature course, he added a blackcurrant reduction to enhance dark fruit notes in his espresso.

He then created a fairy floss from a mixture of raw sugar and freeze-dried Manuka honey, before dissolving this floss with the other espresso.

His signature course featured "floral aromatics", with orange blossom, rose, peach and a hint of red cherry to finish.

Kelly used a new milk machine, which was created through collaboration between ONA Coffee's Angus Mackie and engineers at Breville Australia, in the competition.