World Coffee Championships
The World Coffee Championships (WCC) are seven annual skills-based competitions that are hosted at events around the world, featuring some of the world’s best coffee competitors. The WCCs promote coffee excellence, knowledge-sharing, networking, and innovation.
World Barista Championship
The WBC focuses on promoting excellence in coffee, advancing the barista profession, and engaging a worldwide audience with an annual championship event that serves as the culmination of local and regional events around the globe.
World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship
This competition promotes innovative beverage recipes that showcase coffee and spirits, and highlights the barista/barkeeper’s mixology skills.
World Brewers Cup
The World Brewers Cup competition highlights the craft of filter coffee brewing by hand, promoting manual coffee brewing and service excellence.
World Cup Tasters Championship
Coffees of the world have many distinct taste characteristics and this event goes to the professional coffee cupper who demonstrates speed, skill, and accuracy in distinguishing the taste differences in specialty coffees.
World Coffee Roasting Championship
In this three-stage event, competitors are evaluated on their performance evaluating the quality of green coffee (coffee grading), developing a roasting profile that best accentuates the desirable characteristics of that coffee, and on the ultimate cup quality of coffees roasted.
Cezve/Ibrik Championship
This event showcases the Cezve or Ibrik preparation of brewing coffee, set in a competition format that celebrates the cultural tradition. In this championship, it is encouraged that the competitors bring their own style/cultural element to their performance to showcase what is one of the oldest forms of preparing coffee.
World Latte Art Championship
This competition highlights artistic expression while challenging the barista in an on-demand performance. Baristas are judged based on visual attributes, creativity, identical patterns in the pairs, contrast in patterns, and overall performance.
Recent Announcements
Rules & Regulations Released for the 2025 World Brewers Cup
Rules & Regulations Released for the 2025 World Coffee Roasting Championship
The Specialty Coffee Association is excited to announce the launch of a new education program, designed for those looking to learn more about the World Coffee Championships and begin their journey towards becoming a World Coffee Championships (WCC) Certified Judge. The new WCC Judge Skills Program will launch this November 8-10, with a trial event hosted at Lucca Café in Curitiba, Brazil.
The Specialty Coffee Association is thrilled to announce the locations for the 2025 World Coffee Championships, to be held in four cities across three continents. These championships highlight unique skillsets within the coffee industry, providing a platform for thousands of coffee professionals worldwide to demonstrate their expertise, style, and passion for specialty coffee while celebrating the many hands that contribute to its journey.
The world’s premier competitive coffee event — the World Barista Championship — is coming to Milan, Italy, taking place at HostMilano, October 17-21, 2025. HostMilano, held at Fiera Milano (Rho), is the global epicenter for the Horeca and Food Service industry, offering an unparalleled platform for innovation, networking, and showcasing the latest trends in hospitality.
Registration for World of Coffee Busan is now open!
A number of sponsorship positions for the 2024 World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship are available, including Official Espresso Machine, Espresso/Filter Grinder, Signature Cocktail, Liqor Sponsors, and more.
The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) is proud to announce that the Thermoplan Black&White4 CTS is the Qualified Espresso Machine for the 2024-2027 World Latte Art Championship. This marks the first time that a fully-automatic espresso machine has been qualified for use in the World Coffee Championships.
Today, the Specialty Coffee Association is releasing updated rules & regulations for the 2024 Copenhagen World Coffee Championships; including the World Latte Art Championship (WLAC), World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship (WCIGS), World Coffee Roasting Championship (WCRC), and Cezve/Ibrik Championship (CIC). These four world championships take place at World of Coffee Copenhagen, Denmark, June 27-29.
Join the team putting on the World Coffee Championships in Chicago (April 2024) and Busan (May 2024) as a lead volunteer. The SCA is looking for people who would like to contribute more time and skills by holding lead roles for the event. These positions require a greater time commitment but are perfect for specialty coffee professionals who are open for leadership roles and would like to be more involved with the behind-the-scenes support of the event.
The World Coffee Championships Podcast
“Worlds Apart” tells the stories of the World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship and the World Brewers Cup, two competitions that take vastly different approaches to growing the specialty coffee community. Along the way, co-host Kimberly Yer leads us through stories of unlikely inspiration, the value of setting expectations, the push and pull of subjectivity and objectivity, and the shape of things to come through interviews with Dave Jameson, Cheryl Lee Su Yin, Nick Cho, Chad Wang, and Kristina Jackson.
“Turn It On” tells the stories of the World Coffee Roasting Championship and the Cezve/Ibrik Championships, two competitions with incredibly close-knit communities at their heart. Along the way, co-hosts Anna Oleksak and Sara Al-Ali lead us through stories about navigating subjectivity, all kinds of development, and the lengths we go to for coffee (and love) through interviews with Trish Rothgeb, Sylvia Gutierrez, Lee Yiming, Yuan Jingyi, Sergey Blinnikov, and Turgay Yildizli.
“But I Need It!” continues the story of the World Barista Championships from where we left off in Episode 03, nearly halfway through the competition’s journey, to today. Along the way, co-host Rouki Delrue leads us through stories of evolutionary meetings, competitors who played in the grey areas of the rules, wildcards, and the drive to “bring the trophy” through interviews with Carl Sara, Federico Bolanos, María Esther López-Thome, Martin Shabaya, Innocent Niyongabo, and Annet Nyakaisiki.
“We Were the Punks” traces the early days of the World Barista Championships from a rag-tag group of volunteers looking to raise specialty coffee awareness to a powerful, monetizable stage grappling with questions of scale and professionalism. Along the way, co-host Sonja Bjork Grant leads us through stories of spit buckets, snakeskin boots, backstage woes, intensifying competition preparation, and devastating debriefs through interviews with Tone Elian Liavaag, Emma Markland-Webster, Simi Benzadon, Paul Basset, and Heather Perry.
“Paint a Picture” traces the history and evolution of the World Latte Art Championship through the medium itself, from early etchings to the innovative realistic pours that grace the competition’s stage today. Along the way, co-host Rie Moustakis leads us through stories about the role of the rules, the value of art, and family dynamics through interviews with Carl Sara, Daniel Acosta Busch, and Um Paul.
“It’s a YES!!” traces the history and evolution of the World Cup Tasters Championship through stories about rule-breakers, phone calls home mid-competition, and backstage ballet. Co-hosted by Gloria Pedroza, this episode features interviews with Alf Kramer, Kim Staalman, José Joaquín Ordoñez, and Chloe King.
Across six weekly episodes, the series will offer a glimpse behind the scenes of the different World Coffee Championships, bringing to light some of the hidden stories woven in and around these annual skill-based competitions that serve as the culmination of local and regional events around the globe.
Meet the newest podcast series from the Specialty Coffee Association: the World Coffee Championships podcast. Where did they come from? How did things go wrong? How were they fixed?
All-Stars Online | Season 1
Michalis Dimitrakopoulos joins us for the final episode in this season of All-Stars Online — watch to learn more about his coffee career, winning the 2016 World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship, placing in the finals of the World Barista Championship, and more!
All-Stars Online Episode 5 features 2016 World Coffee Roasting Champion Alexandru Niculae! Learn more about Alexandru’s coffee journey and how to make his signature beverage, an Untold Freddo.
A coffee cocktail, with a cheese foam? Yes, you heard it right — 2017 World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship (WCIGS) Finalist Natasha Shariff combines chai, cheese foam, coffee, and gin to make one of her most interesting drinks of the year! Learn how to make Natasha's signature beverage, hear about how she got into coffee, and her experience as a two-time National Champion and WCIGS Finalist in Episode 4 of All-Stars Online.
Two-time World Coffee in Good Spirits (WCIGS) Champion Dan Fellows makes a twist on his 2018 championship-winning signature beverage, with a little help from a special guest. Watch episode 3 of All-Stars Online to learn more about Dan, his journey to the WCIGS, and what he’s done since.
Nicole Battefeld transforms into caped crusader Battewoman, making an Espresso Battini in order to save her brewer from her arch-nemesis, Robusto. Find out how Nicole got into coffee, her journey to the World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship, and follow along as she makes a signature beverage!
Find out how Mikael got into coffee, his journey to the World Barista Championship, and follow along as he makes a signature beverage!