The 2026 World Barista Championship: What We Can Learn from the Cup

At the 2026 World Barista Championship, competitors kept working on their espresso after extraction. Some separated the crema; another placed the extracted coffee in a reduced-pressure environment. In milk beverages, competitors adjusted milk blends and concentration to convey the coffee’s aroma. The choices that went into placing a cup before the judges deserve another look now that the competition has ended.

The questions they brought to the world stage connect with problems we encounter in our cafés. Competitors offered their own answers in a form that others could compare and learn from. In what condition should the coffee be served? How can a desired aroma carry through milk? How should a recipe respond when conditions differ from those in practice? Following these detailed decisions, we find familiar concerns.

At this year’s competition in Panama, China’s Pan Wei won, followed by Malaysia’s Shing Win and the United Arab Emirates’ Frederick Ruben. Thailand’s Jane Kawinnart also reached the final, giving Asian representatives four of its six places. It is a welcome achievement. Looking back at their routines and those of competitors from around the world, I want to consider choices that might help us prepare tomorrow’s coffee.

Between extraction and the first sip

Time and conditions after extraction are part of preparing a cup. In these routines, competitors cooled espresso, reduced the pressure above the liquid, and separated crema. Cooling addresses temperature; reduced-pressure treatment changes the environment around the liquid. Crema separation divides the foam on top of the espresso from the liquid beneath it. Each competitor worked on this stage with a particular taste in mind.

Jill Hoff used the Better Vessel to separate crema from liquid espresso. Hoff explained that the aim was to reduce the additional bitterness crema could contribute, making the intended flavors easier to perceive. Nicolas Vargas also included this separation method in a routine. Viewers could see both how the equipment worked and which part of the cup the competitor wanted to change. Tasting espresso with and without its foam offers an opportunity to reconsider bitterness and texture we have come to accept as familiar.

Frederick Ruben used a device to place the extracted coffee in a reduced-pressure environment. The team’s interview after the competition helps explain that choice. They said they had arranged for the espresso coffee used in the final to be roasted roughly 15 hours before the performance, choosing that timing for the floral character they wanted to express. They connected this preparation with an approach intended to reduce carbon dioxide after extraction. Roasting time, resting time and post-extraction treatment were considered together within one beverage.

For a café, this raises a practical question: what condition is the coffee in when it reaches the customer? We can consider the aromas perceived immediately and after a short wait, and how the cup’s temperature and the customer’s drinking pace relate to the experience. A useful starting point is to prepare two cups of the same coffee, taste one immediately and the other after a set interval, and record the observations. To explore crema’s role, we could compare a cup with its crema intact against one with it separated. Recording temperature and elapsed time makes the differences easier to discuss.

A competitor’s explanation gives us somewhere to begin. Tasting again with our own coffee, cups and service conditions helps us decide where a method might be useful. With one coffee, we may prefer the texture with the crema included; with another, we may find the impression after separation more pleasant. If a colleague prefers the other cup, we have something specific to discuss. Through that conversation, a movement observed on stage becomes experience shared within our café.

What should we consider after extraction?

Questions for comparing temperature, crema and milk in a café. Record elapsed time, temperature, amounts and the reason for your choice.

Carrying the aroma through milk

Adding milk calls for another decision based on the finished drink. Will the floral aroma we enjoyed in the espresso remain perceptible in a latte? How will the sweetness and texture of the milk work with the coffee? The customer drinks the two together. Carrying a quality we appreciated when choosing the beans into that cup means paying attention to the amount and concentration of milk as well.

Frederick Ruben introduced the team’s own framework for comparing coffee strength and milk concentration. In the interview, Ruben explained that even when the coffee and milk were each good, some combinations made the desired floral character difficult to perceive. That experience makes the question more specific. How much milk allows this coffee’s aroma to remain recognisable? Does that amount also give a pleasant texture? The combination is found by considering aroma and texture together.

The finalists prepared milk to suit their coffees. Shing Win added freeze-dried milk powder to fresh milk, aiming to carry the aroma of a washed Geisha through the milk beverage. Jill Hoff used Liberica with a blend of lactose-free milk and freeze-dried coconut milk. Freeze-drying removes moisture from a frozen material; here, the prepared ingredients were used in milk blends. Different coffees led to different ways of building a drink around their character.

We can revisit a familiar latte in the same way. First, decide what we want a customer to experience in the coffee we use: a nutty aroma, fruit-like acidity, or a comfortable sweetness with milk. Keeping the espresso the same and varying only the amount of milk makes changes in that character easier to compare. We can then consider the milk type or preparation method. Limiting the variables changed at one time also leaves a useful record for preparing that taste again.

The record should include our choice. The combination with the strongest coffee aroma may differ from the one we would enjoy every day. Considering the size and price customers expect, along with a preparation process the café can repeat, makes the decision easier to explain to a colleague. The care we see in competition can serve these small decisions too.

What we change to keep preparing the taste we want

Maintaining an intended taste requires room to adjust a recipe as conditions change. Across the first round, semifinal and final, some competitors kept the same central idea while adjusting details. Jane Kawinnart described using 20 g of coffee for the milk-beverage espresso in all three rounds. The stated yield changed from 36 g in the first round to 37 g in the semifinal and 38 g in the final. The dose stayed the same while the amount of liquid collected was adjusted in small steps.

The interview after the competition adds a preparation story to those numbers. Kawinnart explained that extraction data were recorded during practice, and that differences between batches could require attention to detail even with the same roast profile. Kawinnart also described practising during Thailand’s rainy period and preparing recipes for high humidity as well as more usual conditions. Behind the numbers announced on stage was time spent tasting under different conditions and preparing ways to respond.

Gabrel Tan’s team said they had prepared multiple coffees and espresso presentations so they could choose a coffee for the water and equipment at the venue. Tan also explained that the ingredient ratios in the signature beverage were adjusted to suit the strength of the washed coffee used later. A decision to change the coffee carried through to the other beverage containing it. Choosing a different ingredient calls for tasting the finished drink again.

Looking at what stayed consistent also helps us understand these decisions. Pan Wei continued to describe an espresso recipe of 20 g in and 50 g out across the three rounds, while changing the coffee-to-milk ratio from 1:2.5 in the first round to 1:3 in the semifinal and final. Reading the retained conditions alongside the adjustments brings us closer to the process behind the recipe.

In a café, we can write the reason for a choice beside the recipe: what taste we expected, what differed in the cup, which condition we changed, and which version we chose afterwards. Adding the roast date, dose and yield makes the record easier for the next person on shift to revisit. When tasting observations accompany the numbers, a colleague can use that day’s recipe to inform a decision. We can read competition recipes in the same way, considering the competitor’s explanation and preparation conditions before choosing what to test in our own setting.

Four things to record beside a recipe

An editorial recording proposal: intended taste, conditions, changes, and reasons for the choice.

After learning the name, ask what it does in the drink

When we encounter a new coffee or processing method, its role in the drink helps explain the choice. In the first round, Suhas Dwarakanath described a combination of Excelsa and Pacamara, while Juan Zambrano described adding Ecuadorian Robusta to Sidra. Jill Hoff used Liberica as part of an espresso blend and placed it at the centre of the milk beverage. Alongside the pleasure of recognising a coffee’s name, there is the pleasure of seeing what drink someone has made with it.

Knowing where koji was used also turns a familiar term into a specific process. Chiara Nicolini described introducing koji in the second stage of coffee processing. Gabrel Tan presented a koji-fermented tamarillo—a tree tomato—as an ingredient in the signature beverage. The first example concerns preparing the coffee before it becomes roasted beans; the second concerns preparing a fruit ingredient to add to coffee. Knowing which material was treated changes the explanation we can offer a customer.

That degree of specificity helps when introducing a new menu item. We can explain what was processed, why the ingredient was used, and what someone might notice when drinking it. Customers can relate the explanation to their cup with less pressure to remember an unfamiliar process name. For the barista, it is also a chance to revisit the ingredients selected and think more precisely about what to ask a producer or supplier.

This year’s patterns concern the final conditions of the cup

I see three important patterns in the routines reviewed: working on coffee’s condition after extraction, matching milk blends to coffee, and preparing recipes for changing environments. They connect through an interest in carrying the taste anticipated in the beans all the way to the drinking experience. These are the main tendencies I draw from reading the competitors’ choices together.

Post-extraction treatment attends to the interval between collecting coffee and drinking it. Separating crema or changing pressure shows competitors identifying something to adjust during that interval. With milk blends, coffee and milk are tasted together to determine the drink’s aroma and texture. Practice records and alternative recipes add a further layer: deciding what to express, adjusting ingredients and conditions to express it, and preparing a way to do so in another environment.

The diversity of coffee species and processing methods broadens the available ingredients. The uses of Liberica, Excelsa and Robusta, and of koji in preparing coffee or accompanying ingredients, are interesting when considered alongside their purpose. We can ask which aroma or texture an ingredient contributes after learning its name. From this perspective, finding a new use for a familiar coffee matters alongside discovering the next variety to attract attention.

What might change in cafés and the industry?

If these approaches travel into cafés, I expect quality checks to extend more often to the finished beverage and the way it is served. Roasteries and cafés might assess a coffee as both espresso and latte, comparing what remains perceptible at the actual serving temperature and size. Even with the same coffee, there is reason to examine the combinations needed for a small milk drink and a large takeaway latte separately. Describing a coffee’s flavours and developing a menu could become more closely connected.

Milk suppliers and equipment makers may also find specific development questions here. Which concentration and texture suit a coffee? How easily can a café prepare them consistently? What cleaning and storage procedures are required? Products or tools that take on some of the complex preparation seen in competition could make trials accessible to more cafés. The pace of adoption would depend on price, preparation time and ease of maintenance alongside any sensory benefits.

I also expect comparative records to become more valuable. To inform purchasing and staff training, a café needs to explain what changed with a new tool and whether a different person can prepare a similar result. A competitor’s routine gives us a reason to try; repeated comparisons in the café give us a reason to keep using it. The industry’s potential gains from competition take practical form when those two processes connect.

What might we see in 2027?

Next year, I expect further routines combining these methods to suit individual coffees and explaining the choices in greater detail. The current official listing places the 2027 World Barista Championship in Tokyo from 28 April to 1 May. The following outlook considers plausible directions from this year’s reviewed examples. The actual routines will depend on competitors’ preparation and the applicable rules.

The first development I will watch is more specific matching of milk blends to coffee. This year offered several examples of milk types and concentrations adjusted for different coffees. If that work continues, we may hear more about why a blend was chosen for a particular aroma and texture, and how the coffee-to-milk ratio was determined. Alongside interest in an individual milk or powder, the practice of finding a separate combination for each coffee may develop further.

For post-extraction treatment, I want to hear more about the criteria for choosing a method: under which roasting and extraction conditions a competitor chooses cooling, crema separation or reduced pressure, and what they hope the drinker will experience. This year’s public routines give future competitors a starting point for testing these methods with their own coffees. I expect experiments with the order and timing of familiar tools to continue alongside new equipment. Explaining the resulting sensory difference in terms the audience can understand will become increasingly important.

Preparation for changing conditions also deserves attention. Kawinnart’s records and the alternatives prepared by Tan’s team left room for decisions at the venue. Teams may continue testing different conditions to account for variations in the environment and ingredients. Much of this preparation becomes visible in interviews after the performance. Reading the routines and interviews together can therefore reveal more about the responses actually prepared.

I want to remain open to new coffee species and processing methods. This year’s examples showed different coffees taking on distinct roles within beverages. Next year, alongside watching how widely those choices appear, I will consider the experience a competitor wanted to convey by choosing that coffee. A fuller explanation of the relationship between the producer’s coffee and the barista’s finished drink makes it easier for viewers to find a reason to try it in their own cafés.

Making choices available for others to compare and learn from

A competition creates an opportunity for many people to examine a competitor’s choices together. A public routine contains the coffee selected, the conditions changed, and the reasons for asking the judges to drink in a particular way. Viewers can follow the explanation, compare it with their experience and refer to it in later practice or product development. This preparation, made available to others, is what I want to keep thinking about after the competition.

Many people contribute to that work. Frederick Ruben’s interview included people involved in producing, supplying and roasting the coffee. Jill Hoff’s team mentioned a colleague who helped freeze-dry coconut milk. The competitor presents the result of that collaboration through a cup and an explanation. We learn from the method chosen on stage, and the work of those who helped make it possible deserves to be remembered with it.

The industry can carry this experience forward by creating more opportunities for comparison. Roasters and baristas can taste the same drink, record changes and give producers specific feedback on how their coffee was used. Bringing a method into a café also calls for considering time, cost, cleaning and whether the next person can prepare it in the same way. Sharing the results gives other teams a starting point suited to their circumstances. Competitors’ routines provide material for beginning that conversation.

After the competition, the customer who orders a familiar coffee returns to our café. Preparing that cup, we might remember a scene from the stage: wait a little before tasting, compare the drink with milk alongside a colleague, write one line beside today’s recipe explaining the choice. We may give another thought to the state of the coffee when the customer drinks it. In that way, the questions competitors brought to the world stage can continue into the preparation of the next cup.

Notes & Sources

• Official results: World Coffee Championships — Announcing the 2026 World Barista Champion, Pan Wei
• Competition format: World Barista Championship.
• Video lists: First round, Semifinal, Final / Interview. First round, semifinals, finals and interviews
• Trends and outlook: The patterns described are editorial interpretations of the reviewed routines and interviews