Switzerland’s Matt Winton has won the World Brewers Cup.
Daiki Hatakeyama of Japan was runner up, Elika Liftee of the United States won third place, Carlos Escobar of Australia and Toby’s Estate Coffee placed fourth, Ply Pasarj of Canada placed fifth and Tomas Taussig of the Czech Republic placed sixth in the final round.
“This is not a one person [win], it’s never about one person,” Matt told the crowd post-win. “It’s about everyone that has helped along the way, from the moment I first started drinking coffee through to my first coffee competition. Thank you to the producers, exporters and importers – everybody, thank you.”
Australia’s Carlos Escobar shared the same sentiment, sharing his fourth placing with Toby’s Estate’s coffee trainer Simon Gautherin back in Sydney.
The son of a Colombian coffee farmer, Carlos continued the tradition of storytelling in his routine, sharing the story of his father who was forced to abandon coffee growing and switch to alternate crops after the onset of challenges many Colombian farmers are faced with: climate change, pests, crop disease and extremely low coffee prices.
His second chapter talked about agronomist and Founder of Finca El Paraiso Diego Samuel, who is inspiring a whole new generation of coffee farmers with innovative fermentation techniques. Carlos said he had cultivated his own micro organisms and shared them with other farmers to help gain better coffee prices.
Chapter three highlighted Carlos’ competition coffee, a washed Geisha varietal that had undergone anaerobic washed processing with the mucilage left in the tank for 360 hours to highlight the coffee’s tropical fruit notes.
Chapter four celebrated Carlos’ brewing technique of two equal pours of 1000 millilitres of water at 88°C to 100 grams of coffee, and bloomed for one minute and 30 seconds for a higher extraction yield.
Carlos invited the judges to write the last chapter of his story together, highlighting flavour notes of strawberry, red candied apple and hints of hibiscus flower before tasting.
“I believe we all play an important part in the industry. My role as a storyteller is to bridge the gap between the producer and end consumer, only raising awareness of real coffee heroes together,” Carlos said in conclusion.
To watch performances on-demand, click here.
