World Barista Championship

The World Barista Championship (WBC) is an annual barista competition for the title of World Barista Champion. It is one of seven World Coffee Championships produced by the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) through a wholly owned subsidiary. The competition is composed of the winners of the national barista championships, which are operated by the SCA chapters, or an approved, independent, non-profit national body. First held in 2000, the event is hosted in a different city every year. The 2025 edition, held in Milan, Italy, in October 2025, was won by Jack Simpson of Australia. The 2026 championship is scheduled for 22–25 October 2026 in Panama City and will be the first held in Central America. History

The first competition was in Monte Carlo in 2000. The WBC was dominated in its early years by Scandinavian baristas and was held in Europe or the United States from its inception until 2007, when it moved to Tokyo, Japan. The Tokyo championship was also the first to be broadcast live online.

The 2003 championship in Boston introduced the format of twelve drinks served to four sensory judges, and held the first calibration session for judges. The 2011 and 2012 titles went to baristas from major coffee-producing countries, Alejandro Méndez of El Salvador and Raúl Rodas of Guatemala.

Writing in Gastronomica in 2020, Sabine Parrish argued that barista competitions exist to legitimize the barista as a skilled worker, but that they rest on gendered ideas of skill, professionalism and performance in which the ideal barista is assumed to be male. Her study drew on data from more than 400 female baristas in the United States. William M. Cotter, writing in Signs and Society in 2021, attributed the rise of baristas to professional status partly to the growth of barista competitions, and described how competitors draw on the authority of coffee farmers and roasters in their routines to support their own professional image.

In 2016, significant changes were made to the competition format: competitors could no longer bring their own grinders, which were instead provided by the competition's partner (Mahlkönig); a new espresso machine model, the Victoria Arduino Black Eagle, was introduced; and the cappuccino was replaced by a broader "milk drink" component.

In 2018, Agnieszka Rojewska became the first woman to win the World Barista Championship.

The 2020 championship was due to take place in Melbourne but was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The championship resumed in 2021 in Milan, where it was held alongside the HostMilano trade fair, and Diego Campos became the first Colombian to win the title. Anthony Douglas of Australia won the 2022 edition at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo. Boram Um won in Athens in 2023, the first Brazilian to do so, and in 2024 Mikael Jasin, the first Indonesian champion, won at the inaugural World of Coffee Asia trade show in Busan.

The 2025 championship returned to Milan, where it was held at the HostMilano trade fair; Jack Simpson, the runner-up in 2024, became the fourth Australian to win the title. The 2026 championship in Panama City will be the first held in Central America, and the 2027 championship is scheduled for Tokyo.

Competition format There are three rounds of judging: the first round, the semi-finals and the final. The first round included 56 national barista champions in 2018 and 53 in 2024. The top 15 competitors advance to the semi-finals, plus a wildcard: the highest-scoring competitor not already through from the team with the best average first-round ranking. Competitors are placed in teams, and each must work a shift on the Team Bar, serving coffee to the public, to be eligible for the wildcard. The final round comprises the six highest-scoring baristas from the semi-finals and takes place on the last day of the competition, which ran over four days in 2017 and 2024. In each round competitors present a 15-minute routine in which they must prepare and serve a total of 12 drinks: one espresso, one milk beverage and one "signature beverage" (a non-alcoholic espresso-based cocktail) to each of four sensory judges. Competitors who advance usually perform their routine again in the next round, although the rules allow them to change the layout of their station between rounds.

The four sensory judges award points on a variety of factors including the taste of the barista's beverages, creativity and presentation. In the first round a technical judge also evaluates the competitor's workflow, use of tools and equipment, and the cleanliness of the station; the semi-finals and final are judged by the four sensory judges and a head judge. The judges' points are totalled to produce a final score for each barista in each round. The baristas with the highest scores advance from the first and second rounds, and the barista with the greatest score in the final round wins the title.

In late 2023, the SCA updated the rules for the 2024 championship to allow the use of infused and co-fermented coffees in baristas' routines, provided that no additives are introduced after the coffee reaches the green-coffee stage.

Organization The WBC was operated by World Coffee Events (WCE), an events company jointly owned by the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) and the Speciality Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE) that administered an annual portfolio of international coffee competitions and exhibitions, with the aim of making competition and judging consistent worldwide. In January 2017 the SCAA and SCAE unified as the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). The WBC is one of seven World Coffee Championships produced by the SCA, through a wholly owned subsidiary.

The national barista competitions are each organized by their respective national coffee organizations, which the championships refer to as Competition Bodies; baristas from more than 50 of them compete at the WBC.

In April 2026 the World Coffee Championships began designating Taiwanese competitors as representing the "Competition Body of Chinese Taipei", saying the change aligned with the naming used by the International Olympic Committee and FIFA. The new name also appeared on previously published rankings. The Taiwan Coffee Association said it had not initiated the change and described using "Chinese Taipei" as an unavoidable condition for taking part; the 2016 champion Berg Wu questioned the change, and a Taiwanese legislator, Lin Chu-yin, criticized it.

Past winners +YearLocation Winner and nationality 2000Monte Carlo, MonacoRobert Thoresen 2001Miami, United StatesMartin Hildebrandt 2002Oslo, NorwayFritz Storm 2003Boston, United StatesPaul Bassett 2004Trieste, ItalyTim Wendelboe 2005Seattle, United StatesTroels Overdal Poulsen 2006Bern, SwitzerlandKlaus Thomsen 2007 Tokyo, JapanJames Hoffmann 2008Copenhagen, DenmarkStephen Morrissey 2009Atlanta, United StatesGwilym Davies 2010London, United KingdomMichael Phillips 2011Bogotá, ColombiaAlejandro Méndez 2012Vienna, AustriaRaúl Rodas 2013 Melbourne, AustraliaPete Licata 2014Rimini, ItalyHidenori Izaki 2015Seattle, United StatesSasa Sestic 2016Dublin, IrelandBerg Wu 2017Seoul, South KoreaDale Harris 2018Amsterdam, NetherlandsAgnieszka Rojewska 2019Boston, United StatesJooyeon Jeon 2020Melbourne, Australia Cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic2021Milan, ItalyDiego Campos 2022Melbourne, AustraliaAnthony Douglas2023Athens, GreeceBoram Julio Um2024Busan, South KoreaMikael Jasin2025Milan, ItalyJack Simpson2026Panama City, Panama Scheduled for 22–25 October 2026

World Barista Championship

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