The secret of winning the world coffee brewing championship at the age of Chad Wang28 has been made public.

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Coffee is second only to oil in terms of global trade volume, rather it is an agricultural product. As long as there are games, professionals and fans from all over the world will pay attention to them, just as NBA teams must cooperate with forwards, centers and guards to play well. Taiwan coffee, with an annual production of only 841 metric tons, is like a dust spot compared with other countries. In recent years, due to the dedication of professionals in various aspects, from roasting beans, brewing, pulling flowers, cup testing and other fields, Taiwan coffee has repeatedly stood out in international competitions, making coffee people all over the world look at Taiwan coffee in a new light, and gradually connecting with the refining of fine coffee industry. With the rapid development of fine coffee, there are endless business opportunities in every link. It is not too much to say that it is a silver food and beverage industry.

Wang Ce, who served as the judge of this year's Taiwan Coffee Top 12 + 1 Invitational Tournament and won the 2017 World Coffee Brewing Cup Championship in June this year, polished the mirror of brewing with a skilled and charismatic professional, once again marking that fine coffee is a fashion industry that combines style, technology, flavor, performance, mechanical equipment, etc., and even creates idols.

Trained to taste food since childhood, won world championship at 28

Wang Ce won the world championship at the age of 28 just a year after he started brewing coffee. Nowadays, people always flock to ask for autographs on coffee-related occasions, which seems lucky; however, when Wang Ce set brewing coffee as a career, he developed a set of coffee philosophy that is pleasant to himself and others after repeated and careful reflection and practice.

Each link of fine coffee is a creation of both rationality and sensibility. Wang Ce, who first tried to make a big splash, positioned himself as a maker and required that the brewed coffee must have a close relationship with him. Born in a well-known trade coffee company, coffee has long been a part of daily life, from the age of six sipping this black liquid for the first time,"coffee has been in my life, listening to their chat around my parents, my parents trained me to taste food since childhood, I have to describe the taste when eating, which will help me very much in the future."

At the age of 12, he left Taiwan and chose to study in England alone. He studied biology and food nutrition for a master's degree. Then he went to London Blue Ribbon to obtain a baking diploma. He learned to taste chocolate and worked in a boutique chocolate shop. Chocolate is also about production area, manor, proportion and flavor. Coffee tasting is only a step short for him.

After returning to Taiwan after studying in England, his father arranged systematic coffee classes for him, and also went to work at REC Coffee in Fukuoka, Japan. He was personally taught by coffee master Yoshikazu Iwase, seeking motivation from the needs of his customers, and further refining the feedback notes of customers, accumulating the seal of success in coffee career. When all the conditions were met, Wang Ce would prepare for the competition after a year and a half of formal contact with coffee.

Wang Ce, Champion of 2017 World Coffee Brewing Cup (Photo provided by Dongran Entertainment Industry Co., Ltd.)

Bean picking, fermentation, baking precision, brewer links people and origin

Before the game, Wang Ce's team knew that the international coffee competitions in recent years, whether raw beans, roasting, brewing, etc., all had achieved high scores without exception. Wang Ce thought this trend was quite reasonable, and any contestant would definitely bring out the beans that would win. He realized that "if you don't punch the judges hard, it's hard to impress them." In addition to heavy taste, the aroma/flavor/acid/body fat/aftertaste on the scoring table must be at least moderate.

In order to implement their own ideas and vote for the judges, Wang Ce's team started from the estate, from more than 300 coffee beans on the cup table, selected beans located in the Volcan region of Panama (Volcan), studied the processing method, put more effort into the quality of beans, and committed to producing aroma-like flavor through fermentation, so that the flavor of coffee evolves again. Looking back, Wang Ce suggested to Taiwanese coffee beans,"I think it has great potential to make the quality better treatment method, Taiwan coffee beans can try this method to reflect the quality."

Accurate processing of beans closer to the judge's preferred taste, and then to the trusted roaster, must brew and present the desired taste, such as his speech at the event: "For a cup of 'clean' coffee, workers pick the same color of fresh fruit, after the fermentation process breaks down the sugar into lactic acid and aromatic ester molecules, in your mouth will be a 'pineapple acid'." The information about the origin of the coffee is important, but it is valuable only if I, as brewer, associate it with you and the cup of coffee."

Brewing was the last step in the coffee process, and it was also the step of facing the customers directly. Wang Ce emphasized,"What I need to do is not just make a cup of coffee, but let everyone know what's good about this coffee. This is my homework, my thoughts, and what I did besides brewing."

Delicate movement 9 minutes 59 seconds perfect touchdown

From Taiwan's top 20 brewing masters to enter the World Cup and compete with the top experts of 41 other participating countries, there are only six remaining in the finals, and there will be more than a thousand people all the way through. At this moment, it is in the overall process (bar management, whether it is neat enough, no redundant movements), customer service (whether it leaves the judges with the impression of comfort? Are you thoughtful when drinking your coffee?) and other projects to achieve high scores. In Budapest, Wang Ce's delicate movements, which are different from others, have been impressive so far.

"You'll see my eyes, naturally moving from the Thai female judges on the far right to the far left. Everyone stays for two seconds." The judges all had a noteboard in their hands. Except for the standing chief judge, Wang Ce asked the three sitting judges not to bury their heads in notes."Now I want to start describing the flavor. Please don't rush to write. Focus on my actions." Then he hands out the menu to each judge, and ladies first. These thoughtful gestures increase human contact, which is now a bonus gesture to impress the judges.

Before starting to brew, he first made a warm cup action that no contestant had ever done, and took out a white glove, put it on his right hand, then took out a white long towel, folded it in two, wiped clean the white coffee cups one by one, and placed the cup ears on the right hand side of the judges and presented them to the table correctly. Later, Wang Ce revealed the intention of his every action in the competition during the lecture,"This is a kind of transposition thinking-put the judge's coffee cup in the right position, because the judge will not pick up the coffee cup to smell, but put his face to smell, I believe most contestants should rarely notice this."

After brewing, Wang Ce specially designed a movement for the judges to check whether the coffee mountains of his three filter cups were all the same height. He then handed them the coffee to smell, which was different from the other contestants. According to the rules of the competition, the brewing must be finished within 10 minutes. Finally, Wang Ce cleaned up everything on the table and reached the goal in 9 minutes and 59 seconds without wasting a second.

"The most important thing is the person drinking that drink. A brewer must start from the point of view of the drinker." - Wang Ce, World Coffee Brewing Cup Champion 2017

After the competition, people in Shanghai and Japan invited Wang Ce to cooperate with them to open a shop. However, he had already planned to open a coffee shop next year, but he planned to open his first shop, which was also his flagship store, in Taiwan as a platform to convey his ideas."My father's idea is that if you want to open a shop, you should open it in Shanghai. However, after all, I am representing Taiwan to win the championship, so the first shop must start from Taiwan." Define your brand as "FUN Taiwan","This is an emotional issue, even if you don't earn more in Taiwan than in Shanghai."

One minute on stage, ten years off stage! World champion is to go through repeated careful thought and practice, from picking beans, fermentation, baking and brewing are very precise and delicate.

Wang Ce: Hand is the key factor

"Hand is a very crucial factor." He pointed out that although all the parameters before brewing can be set, but if the hand is unstable, all the parameters will be meaningless, unstable hand will lead to different water pouring each time, the result must be different,"you have to determine your water injection amount each time, you have to count the number of turns, these are the details that a professional brewer should pay attention to."

At the time of the competition, Wang Ce also showed his unique skill_at the same time, he held a pot of water smoothly with both hands, while explaining in English through the microphone, but he first used two pots to fill the left and right ceramic V60 filter cups respectively, then filled the water into the filter cup in the middle of the judge, still maintained stable water injection to the center, in more than a minute in one go alternately filled three filter cups, beautifully won the unanimous favor of all judges.

This remarkable two-handed method of brewing comes from Wang Ce's coach, Stefanos Domatiotis, a Greek who won the 2014 World Brewing Championship. Stefanos 'signature technique had been adopted by several successors, and once it was revealed, experts would know where it came from, but Wang Ce was the first Asian brewer to inherit it.

Brewing champion's water selection tips

Wang Ce was happy to pass on his brewing training to those interested in participating in the competition. He shared his secret to winning the championship from bringing his own water to participate in the competition."Different water quality, different flavor, different parameters are needed." Wang Ce's team decided to use the simplest method. First, use the water quality, then fix the parameters of the house, such as the proportion of water powder, grinding degree, water temperature control, etc., and grind the powder very fine. Once the filter cup is filled with water, the stable hand does not need to turn a few times, and the coffee powder will pour itself. He just needs to pour water into the filter cup."Grinding degree and water volume are the corresponding parameters for brewing. The brewer injects water into the center of the filter cup according to grinding degree. Traditional Japanese hand brewing, grinding is relatively coarse. Some turbulence is needed to stir the coffee powder."

Every recipe has its own water. The water Wang Ce used was neutral, slightly acidic, pH 6.7 - 6.8, and TDS was about 70ppm.(The conductivity, salt, calcium, etc. in water, 0~89ppm is strong soft water. Some baristas like a very clean taste and will use a low TDS value.) According to the values used by baristas, the water quality used by Wang Ce is high in TDS, so he grinds the powder to correspond to this water quality. Then he uses some minerals to balance and fuse these flavors. This TDS value, together with his brewing method and water quality, results in high sweetness and body fat of coffee. and it has a syrupy texture.

Job assignment: Make more people love coffee

Wang Ce believes that one of the lessons of a professional is to let more people like coffee, so that coffee lovers can establish their own coffee style at home,"how do we develop a larger market, everyone does not have to become like us, also does not have to take classes, we can do is how to make coffee easier, so that everyone is willing to try."

"What I want to do is to chain fine coffee. In addition to small shops with their own personality, I want to start from my vision and philosophy and run fine coffee as an enterprise to see if I can do something interesting." The rise of Blue Bottle coffee in the United States has set off a new wave of fine coffee brewed and aged by hand and machine. Wang Ce believes that this wave will be even more surging everywhere.