Frank La of Be Bright Coffee in Los Angeles has won the 2024 US Barista Championship, which took place on 17 March at Rancho Cucamunga in California.
Frank will now compete against Australia’s 2024 Barista Champion Jack Simpson at the World Barista Championship at World of Coffee Busan from 1 to 4 May.
Morgan Eckroth of Onyx Coffee Lab in Arkansas finished second, while Jason Yeo of Saint Frank Coffee in San Francisco came in third.
Frank founded Be Bright Coffee in Los Angeles in 2020 alongside his wife Michelle La. The company currently has a pop-up coffee stand at Smorgasburg LA in downtown LA, and a brick-and-mortar coffee shop on Melrose Avenue which opened in October 2022.
Be Bright Coffee sells wholesale coffee beans and operates its Melrose Avenue café. The company’s goal is to make coffee as easy as possible by offering four taste categories: Dark and Bold, Rich and Smooth, Bright and Lively, and Unique and Surprising. Frank and Michelle aim to simplify the language of coffee, and in turn empower customers to get the coffee they want.
The US Coffee Championships also crowned Mehmet Sagan of Memli Coffee in San Diego as the Cup Tasters Champion and Weihong Zhang of Blendin Coffee Club in Houston as the Brewer’s Cup Champion.
