New rules, regulations for World Barista Championship

The 2024 World Barista Championship (WBC) will feature several new rules and regulations, the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) has announced.

The changes primarily focus on minor language clarifications to current practices around judging, conflicts of interest, and the milk beverage. Additionally, the tactile experience section of the espresso evaluation protocol has been updated for the 2024 event, to be held at World of Coffee show in Busan, Korea, from 1 to 4 May.

Updates to rules and regulations are overseen by the World Coffee Championships (WCC) Competitions Strategic Committee – a volunteer leadership group that meets regularly to work on strategic initiatives including rule updates that foster the competition community and keep the competitions moving forward.

The SCA says changes to WBC rules and regulations last year included new scoring scales to better reflect where SCA coffee value assessment systems are headed, an adjustment to the weighting of categories to reflect the skills and focus of the competition, more options in how to prepare the milk beverage, and a wider range of temperatures for brewing espresso.

The WBC is the preeminent international coffee competition produced annually by World Coffee Events (WCE). The competition focuses on promoting excellence in coffee, advancing the barista profession, and engaging a worldwide audience with an annual championship event that serves as the culmination of local and regional events around the globe.

Boram Um, from Brazil, took out the 2023 World Barista Champion title.

The WBC is one of seven annual championships produced by the SCA, alongside the World Latte Art Championship, World Brewers Cup, World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship, World Cup Tasters Championship, World Coffee Roasting Championship and the Cezve/Ibrik Championship.

For more information, visit worldcoffeeevents.org