Estimated reading time: 6 minutes
Key takeaways
- Using the same coffees and extraction tools produces increasingly similar competition routines.
- Two successive World Barista Champions prioritised communication over technical complexity.
- Simplicity can work, but scoresheets still reward innovation and originality.
- Winning routines reflect what is most relevant to the coffee industry today.
Competitions like the World Barista Championship have always rewarded innovation and excellence. Since its debut in Monte Carlo in 2000, the competition has become one of the coffee industry’s biggest and most anticipated events.
Over the last 25 editions, the competition has grown in prestige. Baristas often showcase advanced-processed Geshas, “rediscovered” varieties, and high-end extraction tools during their routines, having trained for months as they compete for the title of the world’s best.
But over two decades of innovation, a paradox has emerged: the more tools and exclusive coffees that competitors use, the more alike their routines sound. Genuine differentiation has never been harder to achieve or more necessary if baristas want to stand out.
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Why standing out at coffee competitions has become harder
Watch any of the recent World Barista Championship finals, and a pattern starts to emerge. Panamanian Geshas, often processed using several different techniques and controlled fermentations, “rediscovered” varieties like Sidra and Pink Bourbon, and advanced extraction gadgets like WDT tools have become standard.
For a competition that represents the pinnacle of excellence in specialty coffee, this shift was expected. But it also created a sense of homogeneity: with everyone using the “best” coffees and equipment, how do you truly stand out?
For a time, interactive routines set baristas apart. Engaging judges directly, asking questions, and fostering dialogue became another defining tactic of recent competition cycles. But the more competitors adopted it, the more routine it became.
It was against this backdrop that Mikael Jasin won the 2024 World Barista Championship. His routine centred on mindfulness and presence, a deliberate contrast to the typical high-energy performances the competition is known for.
“Innovation doesn’t have to be about processing techniques or new machines,” he tells me. “It can be about how we enjoy or present the coffee.”
Mikael began competing in 2014, already studying footage of past competitors online. “If competitors want to learn, there are always ways to do it for free,” he says.
In 2025, the WBC introduced real-time telemetry to track every espresso extraction on stage, with data published through BibeCoffee technology. It made an already closely studied competition even more transparent for those looking to emulate recipes or train to compete.
“Some competitors will study routines and copy them. And then others will see the patterns and figure out something that goes against them,” Mikael says.
Could a back-to-basics approach work?
The idea that winning the WBC requires the most expensive coffees has been tested before. In 2017, Dale Harris took the world title with a washed SL28 from Finca Las Brumas in El Salvador, the only finalist not using a Gesha.
Four years later, Mikael finished seventh at the 2021 championships in Milan using an Indonesian coffee that cost around US$20/kg. “You don’t need to have the fastest car,” he says. “In this sense, the fastest car is the most complex fermentation coffee or the most expensive coffee. But you need to know how to drive.”
Where a back-to-basics approach can make a genuine difference is in how authentic and connected a routine feels. Mikael describes his ideal judging experience as a calm, low-pressure interaction, closer to having coffee with a friend than performing for a judging panel. This shift in perspective, treating judges as guests rather than evaluators, can alleviate pressure and bring a sense of groundedness to a routine.
“I stopped seeing the judges as judges,” Mikael explains. “Before I was like, ‘I am here to be judged, and they are here to judge me.’ After I switched my mindset, that we are just here to enjoy coffee, it became a lot more fluid.”
Where can the World Barista Championship go from here?
On its 25th anniversary, the WBC continues to serve as both a showcase for the industry and a platform for competitors. Jack Simpson of Axil Coffee won the 2025 edition by focusing on transparency, producer relationships, and the argument that a competitor’s voice is the most valuable tool they can bring to the stage.
Jack’s win followed Mikael’s, and the pattern is notable: Two successive world champions who placed communication and philosophy above technical complexity.
The 2025 championship also introduced the Team Bar, a new scored element designed to highlight teamwork and collective innovation. This is a structural change that could, over time, open the competition to different expressions of excellence beyond the individual 15-minute routine.
For Mikael, the more significant opportunity lies in building a broader audience. He points to Formula One and cricket as examples of disciplines where the technical and theatrical reinforce each other, and where viewers follow narratives as much as results.
“The goal is to innovate at the world level,” he says. “In the regional and national scene, the goal is to be relevant to the day-to-day. And the biggest thing the industry needs is to make it more viewership worthy.”
Twenty-five years of competition suggest that what wins is rarely the newest, but rather what the coffee industry is positioned to receive at that moment. Trends are cyclical, from the technological to the human-focused, and back again, from natural processing to washed, and back again.
“Competing is ultimately a 15-minute pitch,” Mikael says. “The product matters, but the story matters just as much.”
The next 25 years of the WBC will be shaped less by technical breakthroughs than by competitors willing to ask a more demanding question: not what is new in coffee, but what the industry needs right now.
Competitors like Mikael have claimed world titles with this strategy. Answering the question honestly, also adhering to the score sheet, and standing out becomes a byproduct rather than a goal.
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Photo credits: Specialty Coffee Association, Mikael Jasin
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