Ep 06: "Worlds Apart" | World Coffee Championships Podcast

This week, we’re excited (and a little bit sad) to release the sixth and final episode of the World Coffee Championships Podcast’s first series.

“Worlds Apart” tells the stories of the World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship and the World Brewers Cup, two competitions that take vastly different approaches to growing the specialty coffee community. Along the way, co-host Kimberly Yer leads us through stories of unlikely inspiration, the value of setting expectations, the push and pull of subjectivity and objectivity, and the shape of things to come through interviews with Dave Jameson, Cheryl Lee Su Yin, Nick Cho, Chad Wang, and Kristina Jackson.

Special Thanks to Our Series Sponsor, Victoria Arduino

This series of the WCC Podcast is brought to you by Victoria Arduino. Born in the early twentieth century amid social and cultural transformation, Victoria Arduino broke with tradition and focused on progress, a mission it carries forward today. Victoria Arduino advances coffee knowledge and innovates across design, technology, and performance to produce machines that nurture coffee professionals' passion for espresso excellence. For more information, visit victoriaarduino.com. Victoria Arduino: Inspired by your passion.

Special Thanks to Our Episode Sponsor, Licor 43

This episode of the WCC Podcast is brought to you with support from Licor 43. Licor 43 is a premium liqueur produced in Cartagena, Spain, from a secret Spanish family recipe of 43 natural ingredients including Mediterranean citrus fruit and selected botanicals. Licor 43 shares complementary tasting notes with coffee, and it loves putting extraordinary things together. Learn more about how Licor 43 calls on cocktail and coffee professionals around the world to showcase their expertise and creativity with their Barista and Bartenders Challenge. Licor 43: Tastes better together.

We’d like to thank Kimberly Yer, our co-host for this episode, and our interviewees for their time in sharing their stories about the evolution of the World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship and the World Brewers Cup, in order of appearance: Dave Jameson, Cheryl Lee Su Yin, Nick Cho, Chad Wang, and Kristina Jackson.

For a full list of those who helped across the entire series, a year-long effort, click here. Series 01 of the World Coffee Championships Podcast is a coffee documentary series produced by James Harper of Filter Productions for the Specialty Coffee Association.

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Full Episode Transcript

James Harper: What's that sound?

Kimberley Yer: That’s the siren!

James Harper: As soon as we press record, the sirens start.

Kimberly Yer: That’s actually the island-wide siren going off. So normally it is used to trigger, like if there's a tsunami or there's a war coming, ok, then they would sound the sirens. Okay, it's done, it's done. So, I think it's because it's a national day. So they sound one in the morning today at ten, and then they sound one just right now. And I think that's the last one. We're not going to war, so you don't have to worry. [Laughs]

James Harper: Okay. Well, I should say then, uh, welcome back to the World Coffee Championships Podcast. This is the final episode. And today we are going to talk about two competitions, and to help me navigate the story, I am joined by a new co-host. Who are you?

Kimberly Yer: Hi, everybody! I'm Kimberly Yer. Thank you for having me, James.

James Harper: Should I call you Kim or Kimberly?

Kimberly Yer: You can call me Kim. Whichever works for you.

James Harper: So, Kim, where are you right now? Where are you talking to me from?

Kimberly Yer: I'm talking to you from Singapore! A small little tiny red dot, just beside Malaysia and Indonesia. Yes. From the East to the West, it takes less than 30 minutes by car.

James Harper: Tell me like your background. Tell me your story.

Kimberly Yer: I was actually an engineering student. I decided to not go into engineering at all, and I started to work as a part-time barista in one of the chain cafés in Singapore. Okay, and that's where I started my coffee journey until now. Have been in the Singapore Coffee Association for the last—wow, maybe 10 years?

James Harper: How many world events have you judged at?

Kimberly Yer: This will be my five years, my fifth year.

James Harper: Okay. So, Kim, today, we're going to talk about two competitions.

Kimberly Yer: Coffee in Good Spirits and Brewers Cup!

James Harper: On the face of it, you know, these competitions are all about making coffee for judges. They're pretty similar, no?

Kimberly Yer: No, they’re worlds apart!

James Harper: Fundamentally, what is the difference between these two competitions?

Kimberly Yer: Coffee in Good Spirits is a much more fun, uh, competition. So, you see a lot of flair. Uh, it's a much more subjective competition, kay, really involves a lot of creativity, a lot of showmanship, while Brewers Cup is much more objective, okay? It talks about the skill sets of the competitors. It talks about, uh, the coffee as well. So, in terms of the quality of the coffee too, so you can see the two of them are two very different. I mean, the, the mood itself, I think it's also quite different, too.

James Harper: Mmhm. So, which competition would you like to explore first?

Kimberly Yer: I think let's go for Coffee in Good Spirits first. But before we move on, James, let's give a shout out to the sponsors!

James Harper: Yes! This series of the WCC Podcast is brought to you by Victoria Arduino. Born in the early twentieth century amid social and cultural transformation, Victoria Arduino broke with tradition and focused on progress, a mission it carries forward today. Victoria Arduino advances coffee knowledge and innovates across design, technology, and performance to produce machines that nurture coffee professionals' passion for espresso excellence. For more information, visit victoriaarduino.com. Victoria Arduino: Inspired by your passion.

And today’s episode on the World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship and World Brewers Cup is supported by Licor43. Learn more about this premium liqueur produced in the Mediterranean city of Cartagena at licor43.com.

James Harper: So, Kim, this is a really dumb question. In WBC, when you drink the cappuccino from the competitor, what should be the dominant flavor in that drink?

Kimberly Yer: The coffee.

James Harper: What about the signature beverage? What needs to be the dominant flavor there? 

Kimberly Yer: Coffee, the espresso.

James Harper: What about Coffee in Good Spirits? Does it need to taste mostly like coffee?

Kimberly Yer: No, you, you can't taste it mostly like coffee, it has to have a good balance or a balance of combination and flavors of the coffee, as far as the ingredients and the alcohol that you actually put in.

                Dan Fellows: Ok, we all ready?

James Harper: Right. I love to play audio for you of the sorts of things that Coffee in Good Spirits competitors have served judges over the year.

Dan Fellows: So, I'm actually pulling your espressos over 30 gr blood orange ice cube.

Nicole Battefeld: One CL of a PX Cherry.

Hakin Ben Hammouda: 20 mils of Ratafia from Marseille.

Agnieszka Rojewska: 30 mils of orange simple syrup

Nicole Battefeld: a Taytay sake

Dan Fellows: 30 grams of Peller Estates Icewine from Canada,

Agnieszka Rojewska: 20 mils of chocolate.

Hakim Ben Hammouda: Cloves, coriander, and cinnamon.

Paul Ungureanu: 15 milliliters of Tatratea, which is a unique, tea-based herbal liqueur.

Dan Fellows: Please enjoy. Thank you very much. Time.

Kimberly Yer: I think that Coffee in Good Spirits is really where to promote creativity, the sky is the limit. You know, you can try a lot different things. Okay. And how it turns out to you and how you want to bring it to the table and how you want the judges to experience from all of this. So, yeah, showmanship here, your creativity in everything.

James Harper: So, you know, I spoke to a competitor from the UK who told me about some of the lengths he goes to, to create interesting flavors.

Dave Jameson: My name is David Jameson. I am currently the green coffee buyer for Grumpy Mule, and I've had a checkered history of, uh, various competitions, including the Coffee and Good Spirits Championship, where  I have been a national champion, world finalist, and a coach to a world champion as well. So, one of the things I like to do in order to be competitive is to try and stand out as much as I can do. And that's where the creativity comes in. One of the things I think is really important about being inventive and creative is the recipe development stage of this?

So, in the 2016 season, the sponsor was Grey Goose vodka. And what I wanted to do was find a beverage that I could create that had Grey Goose vodka in it. But which gave me a little bit more than just plain vodka, because that's quite a neutral spirit. Seeing as it was Grey Goose, I'd read up quite a lot about fat washing at the time. So what I did is I melted some goose fat, infused that into my vodka, and served a drink which was made up of sweet sherry, goose fat, Grand Marnier, and vodka, uh, together with espresso, uh, which came across as a very weird, slightly savory experience, but had this really silky mouth feel, it didn't taste fatty, it didn't taste like goose? And so having that goose fat in there just led you into that savory side of the coffee and really opened up a very unique, um, taste experience, which I did describe as extraordinary for my judges, I'm not quite sure they agreed with that with the scoring, but it did. It won me the UK championships, so it can’t have been that bad!

James Harper: "It didn’t, it didn't taste like goose." [laughs] So Dave goes to the extent of, you know, melting goose fat and putting it into a coffee drink. And he told me about a time when things went a little wrong as well.

Dave Jameson: So, this recipe development process does have some pitfalls and dangers as well. And there was one year when I was experimenting with a few ingredients than the few methods that I wanted to try and incorporate. I know that bourbon, uh, works really well with, uh, chocolate and bacon. I also know that chili works really well with chocolate as well. And so, what I'd thought I might do is create something where I would infuse bourbon through a bed of coffee using a, an Italian moka pot, and then pour over a chocolate egg with bits of bacon inside.

And it was a brilliant concept… but I… I failed to take into consideration some of the basic physics around this... and what happens when you put alcohol in the bottom part of a moka pot and then try and force it through coffee is it goes quite a lot faster than you might expect. And so the bourbon boiled, it shot out at the top of my moka pot, and I had the lid open to see what was going on and I'd chosen to do this for some reason, I still don't know why, on an open fire, on a gas stove. And so, the boiling alcohol spat out of my moka pot, flooded all over the kitchen, set on fire, and then I'm running around trying to find tea towels to put the fire out. And my wife didn't speak to me for about a week and really, I cannot… I cannot recommend trying to make moka pots with alcohol. Just isn't sensible. Please don't do it at home.

Kimberly Yer: I kind of understand why the wife won't speak to him for one week.

James Harper: Right? So, you know, what would be the value of competing in Coffee in Good Spirits or, you know, volunteering backstage? Like what sort of things would you get to experience?

Kimberly Yer: Well, I think for Coffee in Good Spirits, um, I think the vibe is a lot more fun. In terms of the competitors and even the judges, they just seem so energetic and so fun on stage and backstage as well. And that really attracts me like, “wow, this is a super fun competition that I want to be in!” Or it could be the alcohol that’s making them so fun.

James Harper: It's actually funny. I spoke to some of the organizers of the very early Coffee in Good Spirits competitions. And they said back then, you know, you would see an espresso with like, three shots of vodka.

Kimberly Yer: Oh, wow.

James Harper: So, I heard, I heard that they were dancing on the seats by the end of it.

Kimberly Yer: No, that sounds really... I'm not sure really, I want to say that sounds really fun? Yeah.

James Harper: And, you know, it, it seems like it's all fun and games, but Dave also had an argument for why he thinks Coffee in Good Spirits is important for coffee farmers.

Kimberly Yer: That's interesting.

Dave Jameson: People often dismiss Coffee in Good Spirits as being a slightly gimmicky side show, but I don't think that could be further from the truth, actually. Coffee in Good Spirits has a really important and serious role to play because we have this perception in the market of a ceiling price for what coffee is worth, and it might be GB£3.00 For a flat white, or it might be GB£4.50 for a Chemex or something like that. But actually, if you walk into a cocktail bar, you'll be lucky to get change from GB£10 or GB£15 for an espresso martini, and that might be using the worst coffee in the world. If you can make your espresso martini legitimately worth that GB£15 investment, then actually what you've got there is a change in the mindset of consumers as to what they're willing to pay for coffee. If you can break that barrier down, if you can increase what consumers are willing to pay for coffee, you can flush that throughout the supply network and get to a position where you can reward farmers and you can actually get to a position where the entire coffee industry could be more sustainable.

Kimberly Yer: Okay. I've been to like, you know, coffee bars, especially one in Hong Kong, they really use a specialty coffee and those really comes out great and I'm willing to really pay for it. So actually, during my trip in Hong Kong last year, I did visit their bar every night just to drink a coffee cocktail.

James Harper: Oh, cool. What would the experience have been like in Hong Kong? If you were there, say 15 years before trying to get a coffee cocktail?

Kimberly Yer: Let’s not talk about 15 years ago in Hong Kong, but let's talk about Singapore, then. 15 years ago in Singapore, you will not find coffee cocktail bars. But right now, so you start to see like, you know, people start to pay attention to coffee and cocktails, a very good example would be the Singapore National Coffee in Good Spirits Championship. For last year, I think half of our competitors are actually not from the coffee industry.

James Harper: Oh, really?

Kimberly Yer: Yeah. Yeah. They are from the bar industry.

James Harper: Yeah. Right, right, right. I spoke with Cheryl Lee about the development of the Coffee in Good Spirits Championship in Malaysia.

Kimberly Yer: Ooh, Cheryl! I know her, she’s my neighbor! They're just next door. Yeah, Singapore and Malaysia.

James Harper: And she had some interesting insights about how the coffee in good spirits competition is kind of evolving in Asia.

Kimberly Yer: Oh! Let's listen to that.

Cheryl Lee Su Yin: My name is Cheryl Lee. I'm from Kuala Lumpur and I'm an SCA trainer and a WCE certified judge. Coffee, it is like a magical journey that I never got tired about.

I started drinking alcohol about four years ago because I've seen the competitions going around and I was thinking like, if I don't drink, I don't get to participate, I don't get to judge! The scene for a cocktail in Malaysia, we have five bars that I do know, two of them are actually listed in the World’s 50 Best Bars. Actually, in Malaysia, we do not have the Coffee in Good Spirits Championship yet because of regulations, as we are a Muslim country, but the baristas here, they know very well that this championship exists, and they are quite interested in Coffee in Good Spirits. So, they do serve it in their cafés. And for cocktail bars, they have actually embraced the specialty coffee instead of the usual coffee that we know. It's very encouraging to see cocktail bars using higher quality coffees. It's also another platform to help more consumers understand that there is good spirits and there is good coffee. And when both combined, we create a different dimension of enjoyment in these beverages. The unique drinks that we are seeing baristas and even bartenders using in their cocktail recipes are local ingredients, local spices. We see like pandan, lemongrass. Pandan is a very long leaf. It's green in color. It gives out a very fragrant aroma. We use pandan in our local food, like to cook nasi lemak. I've seen one recipe that uses pandan and also gula melaka [coconut sugar] with hint of a cinnamon. And it actually tastes very well balanced.

I see that Taiwan, they have many years of experience. So, I think we are looking towards Taiwan as a learning platform. When we finally get the license to have the Coffee in Good Spirits competition in Malaysia, I think we will do pretty well on the world stage. Having that we have a bunch of, uh, really good, hungry and inspirational baristas over here.

Kimberly Yer: So yeah, Taiwan! I've been to Taiwan. I try to go to, Taiwan’s interesting. Uh, I go to Taiwan at least once a year, sometimes for the competitions. I do know that the local players have actually putting a lot more effort to try to promote Coffee with Good Spirits.

James Harper: So overall, I get the impression that the Coffee in Good Spirits Championship is becoming increasingly popular in parts of Asia.

Kimberly Yer: Yeah, it is. Uh, I actually see it in Thailand, so talent, is also growing as well. Singapore, we are also trying to promote that here, kay, by trying to get the coffee players involved, as well as the bar, ah, players involved as well, because I think that it is a good mix, so both can learn from each other.

James Harper: Right, right. So, by comparison, you know, it seems like it's a much more subjective competition, you know, a competition that really kind of promotes experimentation.

Kimberly Yer: It is, it is.

James Harper: Yeah. Which is quite a contrast to Brewers competition.

Kimberly Yer: It's black and white.

James Harper: Okay. So, tell me, what is brewers about?

Kimberly Yer: Oh, well, Brewers Cup is all about the coffee.

James Harper: Just the coffee.

Kimberly Yer: And your brewing methods. How you understand your coffee, how you understand your brewing methods, what you're going to do to highlights the coffee.

James Harper: So, you're saying that it's almost an easy competition to get involved in?

Kimberly Yer: Correct. Because we do have a lot of home brewers in Singapore, okay, and a lot of them don't own espresso machines at home, and a lot of them don't work in a café, okay. So to get them to actually be interested in participating in a barista competition is a lot harder, but it's very easy for them to choose a manual brewing method and brew at home and practice at home and to participate in a brewers competition.

James Harper: Interesting. Well, Kim, we're going to hear a story, eventually, about someone who actually somewhat disagrees with that.

Kimberly Yer: Oh?

James Harper: And says, well, you know what, there are these barriers in place and it's not as easy as it sounds.

Kimberly Yer: I'll be interested to hear that.

James Harper: But yes, so Kim, I have a question though—what was it like in Singapore in say, I don't know, 2010, I went to a specialty café to get a filter coffee?

Kimberly Yer: No.

James Harper: What would have been the quality of the coffee?

Kimberly Yer: No. [Laughs] You probably won't even get a filter coffee. Yeah. Yes. So, most of the cafés here don't really do filter coffee back in the days, a lot of them do sell Americanos. So, when you like, even in the chain café, is sometimes when you ask for filter batch brew coffee, they'll probably push you to get Americano instead.

James Harper: Oh, wow.

Kimberly Yer: So, uh, even if you go to some cafés, you will always be batch brew.

James Harper: And what's the quality?

Kimberly Yer: Ah... the quality is.... acceptable?

James Harper: C’mon, let’s be honest here.

Kimberly Yer: It’s, its... it’s safe. Uh, it is boring. It's like a black cup of coffee that they just want to put milk and sugar in it and just forget about your day.

James Harper: Right? So, this was the state of filter coffee in Singapore 10 years ago, which is interesting because I spoke with the person who created the Brewers Cup and he tried to address that very problem.

Kimberly Yer: Ooh, I think I know who the person is?

Nick Cho: My name is Nicholas Cho, I'm co-CEO, co-founder at Wrecking Ball Coffee Roasters here in San Francisco, California, USA. Towards the late 2000s, people were doing more and more manual coffee brewing in cafés. And if you were visiting a café around this time, you might have this similar experience where you go in, and someone's got a Chemex and you order one and they spend like 20 minutes making one and it doesn't taste particularly good. I guess it fundamentally it's like, can we do better than that? I thought, you know, what, if we made a competition, you know, like the barista competition, but for filter brewing?

Designing a coffee brewing competition, you know, what is that like? Well, it's, it's like designing a game or sometimes it feels like writing a song or writing a technical book, but at its core, what it really is, you're designing a small economic system, a system of incentives and disincentives. And so, starting from a blank page, I was inspired by, of all things, of figure skating.

So, figure skating back in the 70s, through the 80s at least, there was a special round called the compulsory round. Figure skating competitors would have to do a figure eight on one foot, I think it's three times, and then they would do a separate figure eight with their other foot three times, and then the judges would come with magnifying glasses and see how consistent those lines were. So essentially the compulsory round was sort of meant to send a message: “Let's prove that you can brew. And let's prove that you can brew it well.”

One of my, my concerns and criticisms of the barista competition culture is that the judges are sort of the possessors of the quality assessment of the standards. It kind of lives in the collective cloud of the judges brains. It should be more objective. It should be something that everyone can learn, maybe together even? Then so I wanted the standards to be built on something that was very accessible and open for anyone in the industry. So, we built it based on the SCA(A) cupping form.

It's slightly modified in terms of the math, but the intent was that if you were a Q grader or someone who was very well versed in the cupping form, then it would take about 15 minutes of calibration of tasting to just make a slight adjustment in your brain and in your assessment from evaluating green coffee to using that same tool to evaluate the brewing quality.

One thing that I should mention: in designing the brewers cup, one of the things that I came up on is, well, are people going to make one coffee? How much time did they have? And I agonized over these choices and these decisions for weeks! And so, you know, I went back to my experiences, going to cafés and seeing one person sort of hovering over one Chemex brew for, you know, five, six minutes and sort of the unpleasantness of that experience as a customer? And thought like, “let's challenge people.”

If we don't create a high bar, then people won't even try to jump that high. So, I thought like, well, what if it was three brews simultaneously? So I, we tried it and three brews in seven minutes was pretty hard, but it felt like a thing that if you practiced, you could do, so that's what we set it as.

With both the barista competition, and any of these competitions, including the brewers cup, the greatest value is not on the stage or the world stage, it's really at home, in different cafés and different cupping labs where people are practicing. Like, you know, there's only six finalists at the world championship, but when you factor in all the national competitions and the more local competitions, and then even people who are trying to practice at home and consider, "maybe I'll compete someday," you're talking about thousands and thousands of people who are training to brew better coffee. And for me, like, fundamentally, that was the only thing that was important. Even that trying, like that's really what I wanted to see happen. And that's what the greatest impact has been!

Kimberly Yer: I kind of agree with him. I think the compulsory coffee was one of the most exciting parts in Brewers Cup.

James Harper: So, can you quickly explain how the compulsory round works?

Kimberly Yer: Everybody has the same coffee, using the same water, using the same grinder. Okay. And really your skills, how good you are in terms of preparing that same coffee.

James Harper: So how, how similar are these coffees in the compulsory round? To me, in my mind, they would taste really similar if brewed by, you know, very many expert baristas.

Kimberly Yer: Oh, no, they can taste very, very different.

James Harper: Can you remember a competition you did, I don't know, more recently? What did a winning cup of coffee tastes like versus a, you know, the runners up?

Kimberly Yer: Oh, compulsory is very hard for us to know because we quote everything so we have no way to understand which coffee it is that we are tasting.

James Harper: Oh, so it's all blind?

Kimberly Yer: It's all blind.

James Harper: Oh, wow.

Kimberly Yer: We have no idea who prepared the coffee. So, this coffee comes to me. Kay. There’s a quote to it, I would just write out a quote to that, you know, discussion. I'll just cup it and score it according to it. That makes it even more exciting and challenging, right? And more fun!

James Harper: It's just, it's amazing how it just strips out so many potentials for bias and prejudice… there’s like, no showmanship, the showmanship it's like behind a wall, you can't even see how they're performing on the compulsory rounds. I mean, it sounds to me a really fascinating competition to be if you're a judge or a competitor, it doesn't sound very interesting if you're part of the audience.

Kimberly Yer: Uh, yeah, for compulsory? May not be interesting for part of audience.

James Harper: It's funny how, you know, with these competitions, you want the audience to be engaged. You want the competitors to be engaged, want the judges to be engaged, sponsors, to be, you know, happy, but sometimes you just can’t achieve all of that in one place. Let's talk about open service, how good do these coffees taste?

Kimberly Yer: [Sighs happily] Wonderful. It's like your whole mouth full of flavors, because you know, Brewers Cup, you taste it at different temperatures. So, some of the competitors are able to tell you, "ok, at this temperature, this is what you're going to taste. When it's hot, this is one of the flavors you can get, bergamot, blueberries. Maybe you're going to get muscat grapes and when it's warm, ok, you're going to get mandarin orange." So it's really how they understand the coffee.

James Harper: Because this is an amazing part of the coffee experience, and, how do you communicate that in a coffee bar? How do you get that across the customers? All those nuanced flavors.

Kimberly Yer: In some coffee bars, so they do have a card as place on a tray together with the coffee.

James Harper: Yeah. Yeah. And I spoke with a Taiwanese competitor who won the Brewers Cup a few years ago and how he brought in many elements of the competition into his café.

Kimberly Yer: Chad Wang, right?

James Harper: Let's go.

Chad Wang: My name is Chad Wang and I'm the World Brewers Cup Champion of 2017. Now I own a café called VWI in Taipei, Taiwan. I had a chance to meet Stefanos Domatiotis of Greece, he was the World Champion of 2014. I was his interpreter when he came to Shanghai for an exhibition, so I was stuck with him for five days straight.

He, as a world champion, was imparting his coffee knowledge, you know, consciously and unconsciously to me, I guess it was then that I got interested in competing. During the practice of the competition, I was thinking, "Okay. So, would this be how I would treat someone who came to my home or came unpaid for a very expensive meal?" Because that was what it was, I was serving Panama Geisha, which was very expensive at the time. So, I was thinking how I could be more, first of all, precise, and then making my guests feel comfortable throughout the 10 minutes. I incorporated many of the moves from tea ceremonies as well, because I'm Asian. They create an atmosphere for their guests through the presentation.

Even when you were just treating your friends, we never use a teabag. We always use fresh tea and it's always in a table and everyone gathered around the master, as we call them, he imparts his knowledge while he's doing it, which is exactly the same as the Brewers Cup Championship. So, after I won the championship—by coincidence, I'm not sure how—the video of my finals presentation got translated into Mandarin Chinese and was shared very broadly in Taiwan. I'm not trying to boast or anything, but, you know, suddenly I became this sort of celebrity person in Taiwan. So, throughout 2017, 2018, all I did was VIP events, you know, exclusive, four to six people. And I was serving them the best pour over coffees, but then something came to me about being connected with the coffee community: what about building my own team of baristas that know what I am doing? Yeah. So that led to me wanting to open a coffee shop. The whole design concept came from me asking who I was and what experience I wanted to bring for my guests. In this coffee shop, I would say VWI is an extension of my championship and who I was.

So, the cheapest coffee in my shop is 180 Taiwanese dollars. Well, that would translate into maybe GB£3-4. The most pricey coffee would be NT$680. So that would be, maybe GB£12? I think educating customers to choose the right coffee for themselves is the most important thing. I'm not saying at all that this expensive coffee, this unique coffee is the only coffee that people should drink.

We have a convenience store in Taiwan called 711. They serve specialty grade Ethiopian Americanos, and that costs GB£1.50. And it's specialty quality, I assure you, I drink it all the time when I go on travels. So, my coffee is two to three times more expensive, but what I also give my customers as an experience to take back for them.

James Harper: And Kim, I also wanted to get a feel for what Chad's café looked like. So while I was on the phone with me, he gave me a virtual tour.

Kimberly Yer: Oh, nice!

Chad Wang: Okay. We are going to VWI on Fuxing. We have the Breeze Center right next to my shop. The Breeze Center is a department store and it's like Selfridges of Taiwan. You can see your Gucci and Cartier, so thats right opposite of my shop. Okay. The sign says VWI by Chad Wang. As we enter, there's only two small tables on the first floor because most of the tables are upstairs on the let's go up. So, it's a full house today. So, let me show you the menu. There's an A4 piece of paper folded in three. And if you see the first section, we have our filter coffees: you can choose V60, Fellow X, or the Gem Dripper. First of all, you choose your dripper and then you choose your coffee—basic, select, limited, and unique—and there are different prices. So, the first page is the actual menu, and the second page is the complete taste description, which I'm going to elaborate just a little bit, because this is also a part of what I did for the championship as well.

So, if you see, you will find jasmine and pear, you'll find white grape aftertaste, you will find bright lime acidity, and tea-like body in this one coffee. So, I described it in a way that's the same as the Brewers Cup Championship. Casper, [asks question in Mandarin]? So, three people ordered Panama Geishas today, and most people ordered lattes, which is great as well. [Laughs]

Kimberly Yer: I’ve been to his place, couple of times. Oh, I can imagine stepping into there, it's just like yesterday! [Laughs]

James Harper: And what about the experience? Like that was a very premium coffee experience he was offering.

Kimberly Yer: He really breaks down his offerings in those options, you know, how he wants to cater to the consumers, whether they want to go for so mething that's very simple, very basic, or they want to go for something that's more flavorful or more extravagant or unique.

James Harper: Yeah! And the most expensive coffee on his menu, it was about US$15 for a filter coffee!

Kimberly Yer: I think that's one of his ways of trying to really bring up that expectations. Everybody sort of expects coffee to be less than US$5. Even in Singapore, when I want to sell a cup of Americano or like, you know, for US$5, I don't think I can sell that as well.

James Harper: So, it's almost like he's using the Brewers Cup to help promote the idea of, you know, a US$15 coffee.

Kimberly Yer: Yes.

James Harper: Changing perceptions.

Kimberly Yer: Correct. I remember when I was there, it was really packed as well. Maybe the thing is it’s really an experience. K? It is an experience. I do remember ordering a cup of coffee and looking through the whole entire brewing process. That's what you actually pay for as well, you know, the way that they grind the coffees and they put the coffee right in front of you. Yeah. So, it's an entire coffee experience.

James Harper: The whole value proposition.

Kimberly Yer: Yeah. Correct.

James Harper: And it, kind of, Chad’s approach here, to me, it sounds like it's very much focused on flavors, on you know, the latest in coffee brewing science.

Kimberly Yer: Yeah, it is. I think, to be able to reach out to the common public, the consumers, I think the main, main key thing that really probably that stands out to them is the difference or the variety of flavors that they can get from their cup of coffee. I mean, when I went to talk to my friends and tell them, "Hey, you know, coffee on its own is not bitter and you can get so many different flavors out from it." And most of them gave me like, disbelief. Like, "huh? What are you talking about?" Okay. So I think to really get that interest is to really just let them know that, you know, coffee on its own is different from the way that it's traditionally been tasted or been consumed, especially in this part of the world. And there's a lot more flavors that can, they can actually get from a cup of coffee.

James Harper: That's interesting. Yeah. So, it's a way to bring in consumers. They get coffee drinkers, excited about new flavors, to get them to pay more for it so it's a more economically sustainable industry.

Kimberly Yer: Yes, it is. It's really, it's, it's the satisfaction to see them really brewing your own coffee at home and to see them scouting for new coffees at other independent specialty roasters as well, yeah.

James Harper: Interesting. Yeah. And now I want to switch gears and look at another way in which Brewers Cup is being used to further another goal. And I would like to share with you the perspective of a US Brewers Cup competitor.

Kristina Jackson: Ah, my name is Kristina Jackson. I am currently store manager at Intelligentsia Coffee, but my background is actually in music. I have a bachelor's and master's and voice performance focusing on classical music. So, I started considering competition in 2018 and it took about another year of me to really get, honestly, get the courage to do it. I think part of it had to do with, I felt like... you know, and, and I felt like, honestly, as a black woman, I was like, "I don't know if I have a shot.” I see a lot of the same faces. I see people who have access to things that I don't have access to, mainly money. Do I have access to the lab? Do I have access to time outside of work to practice? I think it was a couple things that kind of made me decide, "I want to do this." I think one of the reasons was being promoted to that sort of leadership position at Intelligentsia. And I see people who look like me, who are really excited about coffee, and I want to be able to set an example for them and say, "here's what's possible."

At the time, Glitter Cat was coming up. Glitter Cat? it's a training program to boost voices in the coffee industry that had had a very small voice. So, these are marginalized folks, people of color, people in the LGBTQ community, you know, disabled folks. I, you know, I applied for Glitter Cat. It's probably one of the best decisions I've ever made.

Going to Nashville, as a spectator, in January was really part of what pushed me to compete. I can think of a couple examples of a person walking up, setting up their routine and starting off and saying, "Judges, today, I'm going to brew you a cup of coffee that you will love. This coffee was made by this producer in Colombia," and they start brewing their coffee and they stand there and don't say anything else for the next two minutes. Maybe that's an exaggeration? But what I was missing was, "here's why I love this coffee. Here's why I think you will love this coffee."

My routine was a journey to say the least. If I want it to be successful as a competitor, I had to have something that was different. If we, black coffee professionals, want to be seen, obviously we want our skills to be seen, of course, but it's not that simple. We have to have a voice, so that was starting with the producer in Ethiopia. I used a black roaster, Boon Boona in Seattle, and I said, I'm going to be a black performer on stage making black coffee. For… white judges. [Laughs] And in my opinion, I don't think it's necessary to have a super crazy high scoring coffee in order to perform well. I mean, I think it's important to have a good coffee, but I think it's more important to make a pretty good coffee tastes good.

When I went to preliminaries in Austin, I saw a guy, he had all sorts of tubes and glassware, and I guess that's cool? But is this something that if I came in as a first timer, would I be like, "Oh, can I do that at home?" When we talk about innovation in the coffee industry, we're talking about how do we reach our consumers, not how can we make them more confused? [Laughs]

I said, look, “I'm going to use a Kalita. I'm going to try to get as much sweetness out of this as possible. Try to bump up the extraction as much as I can and make a soft, sweet round cup of coffee that makes me want to sit outside in the summer and enjoy it.” I knew that if I wanted to connect with my judges, they had to see my face. I can't hide behind the coffee. I think also I had an advantage with is with my opera training. The first thing they teach you in studio class in singing is make eye contact. And if you don't make eye contact, look directly above their heads, so it looks like you're looking at them. And you know, I didn't want to use music. I didn't want any distractions. One of the things I did in Nashville is I handed out cards with pictures on them. And it was a picture of Lem Butler, it was a picture of an Ethiopian coffee ceremony. I posed a direct question: "what do you think about when you see these things?" And I really think it challenged them to be engaged with me, not me engaging with them, them engaging with me. That was sort of my way of accessing them as people. And not just as like a judge to, you know, tell me how well I did on professionalism.

So, competition went surprisingly well for me. When I went to Nashville, there were, I believe 30 competitors? I placed eighth overall, and I placed fifth overall in compulsory, which absolutely blew my mind because to be honest with you, I did not really practice for it. At Intelli, we dial in every single day, we cup every single day. And I was like, “I'm doing this all the time anyways, do I really need to practice it?” I was done before everyone else. I was like, "I don't know, coffee's pretty good to me." I think I brewed it three times and I was like, "I don't know, I'm done. Here you go." [Laughs] And, uh, and then I saw my name. I was like, yeah, I think fourth or fifth overall. And you know, I tried not to let that get to my head.

I would love to see Brewers Cup evolve in two ways, I think. The first way, I think I would love to see the aspects of compulsory be integrated into the other competitions a little bit more? I love that it challenges us as brewers and it does not put the onus on the producers. And the second part of seeing brewers evolve is I think I just want to see it being more diverse. And I'm talking about racial, visual diversity, and I'm talking about ways to make it more accessible. It's expensive, a good refractometer is 700, 800 bucks sometimes. And I saw a guy, bless his heart, the guy who was set up next to me at Nashville, I swear to God, he had a stack of like four refractometers sitting on his table.

And I said, "What, what do you need those for?" And he said, "I’m using them for compulsory." I said, "all four of them?" And it just—seeing that, as someone who I, I don't, I mean, I have access to those things at work, I don't have them at home. I spent all my own money, all my own time, on all my equipment. It's insanely expensive. Are there ways to sponsor, to pool resources, to help people get on stage?

Down the line, um, I would love to coach. I would love to judge! I would love to help people reach their potential. It's not just about me, it's about what our industry is going to look like in 15-20 years, we're going to have different coffees, we're going to look different, and I want to be able to help people along the way, if I can.

Kimberly Yer: Wow! This a culture shock.

James Harper: Really? How come?

Kimberly Yer: So, it's really interesting to hear what she said based on her own experience, right? And I can say that, uh, it could be the similar situation for us here in Singapore. Probably not particularly in brewers, maybe more in barista competitions, that you see the same old competitors again, every year and yourself like scared and newcomers. So, I said, "Oh, it's always the same competitors. They have won, or, you know, their baristas are always the top six." So,  our numbers for those competitions are always stagnant.

James Harper: And to compete is also a privilege.

Kimberly Yer: It is, it is, to compete is also a privilege, actually, because you have your registration fee, you need to buy your green beans, you need to take time off from work, you actually, you need to invest time to actually practice as well. Like she mentioned about Glitter Cat, that she really benefits from there, in the Singapore Coffee Association, we also did talk about whether we should ask them financial help, in terms of sourcing of green beans as well.

James Harper: And, you know, Kristina mentioned, she'd like to see more compulsory elements in all the competitions.

Kimberly Yer: Me, too!

James Harper:  You too, right.

Kimberly Yer: We do run some on WCE-sanctioned competitions. We actually get them to use the same espressos.

James Harper: Oh!

Kimberly Yer: So, it's really like, you know, it depends on, really, on your own, your skillset then. So I, I actually kind of like you, I find it interesting that she said that, because I would like to also look at it in that way, together, but you know, maybe not too far off from the actual competitions, but maybe they'll throw in another element to it. Like they have the wild card, they have the team competitions, and to have something similar to that as well. Yeah. That'd be really, really interesting.

James Harper: Right. And ultimately, how can people shape what the rules look like going forward?

Kimberly Yer: I think the World Coffee Events, it is not closed to ideas. Okay. So, there's a lot of things that's happening, where people can share their ideas and voice their concerns. And that's why you always see revisions of rules and regulations on a regular basis. Let’s think of, for example, for WBC, World Barista Championships, I think we have been seeing them adjusting their rules. Okay. From moving the tables, changing the way the tables layout is like, know, this is really interesting things they're taking, you know, one step at a time.

James Harper: In the World Barista Championship, you know, part one and part two, we kind of explored how the rules slowly evolved through this collaborative process. This wasn't like one person making rules. It's been a very organic, community-led, volunteer-led process.

Kimberly Yer: Correct.

James Harper: And you know, these competitions kind of meet needs. And if for Nick Cho, the problem he found was that he’d wait for 20 minutes to get a filter coffee, and it wasn't a very good filter coffee. Do you think like the brewers competition has change that landscape that Nick Cho wanted to change 10 years ago?

Kimberly Yer: Definitely. Definitely. Now I can just walk into a café and I can expect to actually have some proper brewed coffee. And I began to see even saw the hotels doing that as well. Wasn't there a recent article, a couple of years back, of a Korean airline? Actually offering good brewed coffee, hand-poured coffee as well?

James Harper: Tell you what, you know you're succeeding when airlines and big hotels are starting to take coffee seriously.

Kimberly Yer: Yes, correct.

James Harper: I feel like we're at a point now where we need to ask ourselves, what do we want next for specialty coffee? Do we want to really push the potential for flavor and to really kind of lean into the science? Or, do we want to lean in on the accessibility of coffee? Where do we want to go? And how should the scoring and format of these competitions be changed to get there?

Kimberly Yer: Uh, I don't have an answer for you, I think the answer is too big to just be me on its own. Uh, I also have a lot of queries coming from students, coming from baristas in Singapore. I think the most important part is really be a part of the community that you are in, plus the national chapter, you know, get to know how the competition is run, because you can volunteer as a runner, volunteer as a calibration barista. If you, even if you have skills in terms of, uh, barista or coffee skills, you can even volunteer as a judge as well. So that is how one can actually get involved in the local community and build the local community up because I come from that way as well. And from there, go to the world stage and contribute in any way that one can. I guess, competition has committees, there’s evolution committee, ok, the committees for rules and regulations as well. You can be in touch with the committee, you can be in touch with people of community, you can even vote for SCA Board of Directors, too. There's a lot of ways to be involved. So that's the key. Yes! Get involved. Join us!

James, let's roll the credits!

James Harper: Credits time! So, we'd like to thank Dave Jameson, Cheryl Lee Su Yin, Nick Cho, Chad Wang, and Kristina Jackson, and there were so many more people who helped put the series together and we've listed their names on the SCA website.

Kimberly Yer: James, let's give a shout out to the sponsors!

James Harper: Yes! This series of the WCC Podcast is brought to you by Victoria Arduino. Born in the early twentieth century amid social and cultural transformation, Victoria Arduino broke with tradition and focused on progress, a mission it carries forward today. Victoria Arduino advances coffee knowledge and innovates across design, technology, and performance to produce machines that nurture coffee professionals' passion for espresso excellence. For more information, visit victoriaarduino.com. Victoria Arduino: Inspired by your passion.

And today’s episode on the World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship and World Brewers Cup is supported by Licor43. Learn more about this premium liqueur produced in the Mediterranean city of Cartagena at licor43.com.

Kimberly Yer: And James, the producer of the series is you, am I right?

James Harper: Yep. This series is produced by me, James Harper of Filter Productions for the SCA. And Kim, I want to thank you so much for lending your expertise and your time to tell these stories!

Kimberly Yer: Thank you for having me here. It's a great pleasure.

James Harper: And with any luck, I will see you next year at the competitions.

Kimberly Yer: You will, I will see you and the rest of the coffee community next year in the world championship.

James Harper: Cannot. Wait.

Kimberly Yer: Me, too.

James Harper: Well, Kim, have a great time over in Singapore and we'll speak soon.

Kimberly Yer: Yeah, you have a good day ahead too, James!

James Harper: All right, catch you later.

Kimberly Yer: Bye!