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Coffee contest News World baristas Championship (WBC) major changes in the coffee competition video

Published: 2026-04-29 Author: World Gafei

Last Updated: 2026/04/29, Its a tricky subject to comment on succinctly. When I competed in 2007 I used the sponsored grinder, which seemed to shock a lot of people. I didnt really have a job at that time, and I simply couldnt afford to ship a grinder across the wo

"It's a tricky subject to comment on succinctly. When I competed in 2007 I used the sponsored grinder, which seemed to shock a lot of people. I didn't really have a job at that time, and I simply couldn't afford to ship a grinder across the world. As such, I actually like the idea of a level playing field.

Barista competition isn't about replicating the cafe, or the real world. It is a game, sport if you will, based on making coffee. The competition has a positive impact on many aspects of speciality coffee, and if this decision helps make the competition more sustainable then I am for it.

I understand that people will be frustrated, that they feel that this will deprive them of the ability to serve what they want-but that could be said about everything from the machine to the water. I hope this doesn't put people off competing-it would be a shame for them to miss out on all of the benefits of competition. "

James's competition mill in 2007 is actually the organizer's bean grinder. When it comes to WBC, he is more inclined to regard it as a sports event. What the competition site needs to show is the daily work skills of baristas. The contestants' attention should be on the technical level, and the excessive exploration of machines may deviate from the original intention of the game.

Of course, James also mentioned that it is really troublesome to move a professional bean grinder to the scene of the game. Therefore, by the 2016 WBC, Mahlkonig will place 30 K30 Vario in the competition venue for the players to use, so the players may not have to bother to transport the equipment to the competition venue. Moreover, Matt also pointed out that it is not difficult for professional baristas to adapt to K30.

Comparatively speaking, the change of "Milk Course" has a more far-reaching impact. To some extent, it may affect the development of fine coffee in the future.

The content of the WBC competition is mainly composed of three parts: Espresso,Cappuccino and Signaturecoffee, namely espresso, cappuccino and creative coffee. In the past, the requirement for cappuccino was quite strict, with single espresso mixed with whisked milk, the thickness of the foam was not less than one centimeter, and the size of the container was limited to 150~180ml. How to make delicious and coffee-flavored drinks under such stringent requirements has always been a great challenge for contestants. The new change replaces "cappuccino course" with "milk coffee course". There is no rigid requirement for the thickness of milk foam, and the size of the container has been relaxed to 30~240ml.

With regard to the changes in milkcoffee course, the explanation on WCE is:

After fifteen years of focusing on a single definition of a milk drink on the WBC stage, we think it's time to open up the milk beverage course to something that better represents where we are today as an industry: open-minded to anything new and delicious.

In the whole coffee industry, the mixture of milk and coffee is undoubtedly the most accepted and loved by the public. But on the WBC stage, milk coffee has been limited for 15 years. Therefore, from the next year, the WBC competition will accept the independent ideas of players from all over the world on the milk coffee.

"I'm also looking forward to seeing new combinations of milk and coffee being explored." when Matt talked about the changes in Milk Coffee, he also expressed expectations for the creativity of baristas in the future, but it may also be a hidden worry for the coffee industry.

"The freedom to choose the volume of the drink will promote laziness and could result in the stagnation of Roasting and Barista technique."

Relaxing the coffee-to-milk ratio is likely to slack off baristas and bakers. At present, many coffee roasting will have the problem of insufficient flavor development, and many people will confuse shallow roasting with flavor development. In the past, for a fixed proportion of cappuccino, if the flavor development of coffee beans was not enough, it would lead to the problem of weak drink and weak sense of balance, thus prompting roasters to improve in the direction of complete flavor development. now it only needs to reduce the proportion of milk when mixing to cover up the incomplete development of coffee beans. Obviously, this is not good for the improvement of the skills of baristas and bakers.

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