2022WBC.WBrC is about to open! Contestants say the world barista competition needs to be changed.

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As a coffee Olympic Games, the World Coffee Championships (WCC) organized by the World Coffee event (WCE) every year have attracted the attention of coffee practitioners and enthusiasts.

According to the latest news, the 2022 Coffee World baristas Competition (WBC) and the World Coffee Brewing Competition (WBrC) will be held at the same time later this month (September 27th-September 30th) in Melbourne, Australia.

The World Barista Competition (World Barista Championship, WBC) focuses on the production of conventional and creative products based on espresso. Each contestant makes four cups of three coffee drinks within 15 minutes: espresso espresso, informal milk drinks (traditionally cappuccino cappuccino), and innovative drinks, which are graded by four sensory judges and one technical judge.

Coffee "World Brewers Cup" (WBrC) in the world focuses on using coffee beans from a single producing area and making them by hand. WBrC is divided into designated brewing and optional brewing two parts, the former needs to use the competition to make coffee beans, the latter is the contestants bring their own coffee beans, each stage needs to brew three coffees for sensory scoring to the judges.

The brewing competition focuses more on the tasters' feelings, allowing baristas to present a more real taste of coffee to the tasters, so the coffee experience should be deepened by combining the performance elements in the optional brewing process.

As one of the top coffee competitions in the world, the purpose of every competition since 2000 is to improve the quality of coffee and promote the professionalization of baristas. In the past 20 years, great changes have taken place in the coffee industry.

As for some of the contents of the WBC competition, in recent years, many contestants and coffee practitioners have put forward suggestions to improve the acceptance, tolerance and transparency of the competition.

Some media have previously interviewed several former WBC champions-contestants (Pete Licata in 2013, Agnieszka Rojewska in 2018, Jooyeon Jeon in 2019, and Maxwell in England who have participated in three WBC sessions) to understand their views on the event.

The WBC competition gives baristas a stage to share ideas, giving them a better understanding of the barista profession and the coffee industry, as well as the opportunity to promote boutique coffee.

Jooyeon Jeon said this is a competition that many people in the coffee circle are looking forward to because it brings together the most professional baristas in the world. For many people, this is an opportunity to learn more about coffee and learn more about coffee brewing experience, so this competition is about developing the boutique coffee industry and enhancing the value of baristas.

In the past, few people thought that baristas were a profession. Until now, many people still think that the job of baristas is easy and part-time workers can do it. On the other hand, the stage of WBC provides an opportunity for people to get to know baristas and make them feel that baristas are doing something professional and valuable.

Pete Licata also said that the boutique coffee industry, which was once small and immature for more than a decade, has grown rapidly, as does the profession of baristas. But over the years, some invisible and immeasurable expectations have gradually become part of the game and scoring. But some important things are gradually weakened.

Pete pointed out that WBC should be a competition for baristas, testing baristas' skills. But today's competition is more focused on the purchase of coffee and what contestants know that others don't know. A competition like this

Some acceptance and tolerance have been lost. Although the rules and regulations of WBC have improved over the years, the format and judgment remain the same as a whole, which is a problem for some contestants.

Maxwell, a British player who has competed in three WBC finals, said in an interview that he thinks the competition needs to be more transparent. Maxwell said he initially thought the WBC would be more objective and fair than usual, but later found that the rules of the game were not based on an understanding of scoring and objectivity. To put it simply, the score has more to do with the judges' emotional judgment.

All four contestants said in an interview. WBC is indeed a better platform for baristas to show themselves, and both event organizers and judges work hard to ensure the value of the game. But there hasn't been much development in the past decade, so something must be redefined to make it more objective, transparent and easier to understand.

Greater transparency in the scoring system

As for the subjectivity of the score, Maxwell believes that the score is still too subjective and opaque, and that the competition does not explore these issues enough.

The reason: "the complexity and lack of transparency of the rules control the rules, and many of the scores are done behind closed doors, and there is no opportunity for accountability afterwards, nor does it elaborate on the grading process. At the same time, some more experienced and influential judges may unwittingly affect the scores of other judges.

Maxwell believes that the point of view is valuable, so it is normal for each judge to have a different view of the coffee and the score, but the final published score does not quite reflect this, so he believes that letting the judges publish their scores on the spot will make the public more interested in the competition and fairer to competitors.

The publicity chosen by the judges

Pete and Maxwell said that WBC judges' choices are private, so the selection process is not regulated, and many contestants complain about the qualifications of the judges.

Some contestants work hard and give behind their backs, and sometimes they will be judged by people who do not have the same experience / experience, which will be unfair. Although most of the judges have tried to make their scores more rational, accurate and fair in recent years, there is still a lot of room for improvement.

WBC competition theme formulation

Now we can also notice that whether it is WBC or other coffee competitions, many of the themes and performances chosen by the contestants are things that ordinary coffee practitioners cannot learn.

While these contestants should encourage people to try more and better practices, plans and strategies, they should not encourage things that baristas who work in cafes every day cannot learn.

Pete said some contestants asked scientific institutions to do research for them, so they cited the data in their presentations to increase credibility and score points, but the weight of information should not be higher than anything else.

This is unfair to some creative contestants who do not have the time or ability to go to the producing area to study planting and treatment methods, so Pete believes that innovation and creativity should be separated.

The inclusiveness of WBC

Over the years, WBC's championship list highlights an inclusive problem, which is that the vast majority of winners are male and white.

After more than two decades of competition, it was not until 2018 that the World Barista Competition had its first female champion, Agnieszka Rojewska from Poland, and Jooyeon Jeon from South Korea in 2019.

Agnieszka said that few women took part in the WBC in the end, so it seems logical that women have little chance of winning.

Every contestant who goes to the WBC arena comes here on behalf of each country and region after a round of selection. But in these competitions, very few women actually took part, and the competition itself will not prevent anyone from participating.

To win the game, you often need to invest a lot of money / sponsors, so you can have better coffee, better preparation and better training. Few women participate, and the biggest obstacle is resources. Therefore, we need to pay more attention to the resources and training opportunities for female athletes.

WBC is still a great stage for baristas. This stage has led to the development of the boutique coffee industry as well as the barista industry, because it encourages baristas to have more innovation and research on their skills, and encourages baristas to connect more with the place of origin.

The contestants put forward the idea of change in the hope that such an event can better demonstrate this value.

Photo Source: perfectdailygrind