Here are the Winning Performances of the 2018 World Coffee Champions

We were thrilled to witness all the competition action live in Belo Horizonte last week, and were captivated by the wonderful coffees, innovative brewing techniques, beautiful artistic designs and accurate palates by the brewers, bartenders, latte artists and coffee tasters.

Here’s a breakdown of the winning performances of the new world champions from each of the four competitions.

Urnex is proud to be the Qualified Cleaning Products Sponsor of the 2018 World Coffee Championships.

World Brewers Cup Championship

Emi used a unique brewing method from Slovenia that combines immersion and drip brewing. The brewer that Emi used looked like an ordinary piece of manual pourover equipment, but it integrated a valve at the base of the brewer. This valve gave Emi the ability to toggle between allowing the water to pass through the coffee, like a traditional drip brew, or to hold the water to coalesce with the coffee grounds, like an immersion brewer. This fusion brewing method created a complex blend of flavors that dynamically changed as the coffee temperature transitioned from hot (pineapple and red grape) to warm (red grape and rum) to cool (red grape and green apple).

Emi collaborated with two Urnex Ambassadors in her preparation for the Brewers Cup Championship. Mathieu Theis is Emi’s partner in life and at Mame Coffee in Zurich, and he finished third in this year’s World Barista Championship. Lex Wenneker, who finished second at this year’s WBC, roasted Emi’s championship-winning coffee at his roastery, Friedhats, in Amsterdam.

2018 Brewers Cup Championship Finalists:

1. Emi Fukahori, Switzerland
2. Regine Wai Yee Beng, Malaysia
3. Stathis Koremtas, Greece
4. Pang-Yu Liu, Taiwan
5. Kaoru Kamiyama, Japan
6. Yeo Qing He, Singapore

World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship

Dan created a warm designed beverage that he called “A Message from El Salvador,” celebrating a range of producers of that country that provided his ingredients. Dan used a semi-washed Red Pacamara coffee from Finca San Antonio paired with an El Salvadorian rum as the base of the cocktail. Dan added complimentary ingredients of El Salvadorian cascara-infused Gouveia cachaça, Pedro Ximinex and a spiced butter mix to produce flavors of Christmas pudding, brandy butter and dark chocolate orange.

For his Irish Coffee course, Dan created a Caribbean Irish Coffee filled with tropical flavors of the island nations. He brewed a naturally-process Yellow Pacamara in a Clever Dripper as his coffee base to build a foundation of passion-fruit and pineapple flavors. He created a blend of three Speyside whiskies to contribute to the tropical flavor of the drink. He topped off the drink with double cream from The Estate Dairy in the United Kingdom.

Dan has already won the 2019 UK Coffee in Good Spirits Championship, so he will defend his world title next June at the 2019 WCiGS Championship in Berlin.

2018 World Coffee in Good Spirits Finalists:

1. Dan Fellows, United Kingdom
2. Manos Mamakis, Greece
3. Danny Wilson, Australia
4. Artem Bakurov, Ukraine
5. Min-Seo Kang, South Korea
6. Dan Bacaintan, Italy

World Latte Art Championship

Irvine’s presentation concept incorporated different animals that he envisioned in a dream on an island. In his finals performance, he created a hornbill and a monkey for his two free pours. And for his designer latte art, he created a dolphin. Each of Irvine’s animals were created with thick, clean and vibrant milk lines, and they were each positioned in tropical island environments complete with palm trees and coconuts.

2018 World Latte Art Championship Finalists:

1. Irvine Quek, Malaysia
2. Michalis Karagiannis, Greece
3. Liang Fan, China
4. Shinsaku Fukayama, Australia
5. Agnieszka Rojewska, Poland
6. Wonjae Choi, South Korea

World Cup Tasters Championship

The Cup Tasters Championship tests competitors’ ability to accurately and quickly distinguish the differences of specialty coffees by identifying the odd cup in a set of three coffees, with eight sets of cups in each round. It is the only World Coffee Championship without judges, as competitors choose either the objectively correct or incorrect cup in each set.

2018 Cup Tasters Championship Finalists:

1. Yama Kim, Australia
2. Niels Te Vaanhold, The Netherlands
3. Walter Acevedo, Colombia
4. Waruth Tangsuriyapaisan, Thailand