While the 2013 World Barista and World Brewers Cup champions have already been crowned, this week the global coffee zeitgeist will invade the city of Nice, capital of the Cote D’Azur region of southern France, for the 2013 SCAE World of Coffee event. The SCAE throws massive events like this each and every year — sometimes in conjunction with the WBC, sometimes not — and this year’s shindig will turn Nizza into a global coffee capital for three raucous, action-packed days.

Your Sprudge Editors are here right now, contemplating a royale with cheese from the nearby McDonalds, and preparing to cover this week’s spate of events with support provided by the SCAE itself. WOC Nice is playing home to four distinct international specialty coffee events, each with their own proud history and cornucopia of barista talent.

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The World Latte Art Championship features a world-beating field of competitors from Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and Europe. Just as they’ve done for the World Barista Championship, the WLAC battle is viewable via Livestream courtesy of World Coffee Events – you can watch that livestream right here.

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The World Coffee In Good Spirits Championship is specialty coffee’s premiere global merging of great coffee and booze. Are you unfamiliar with the WCIGS’ innovative competition format? Let’s look at their official language together, shall we?

During the preliminary round, competitors produce four drinks – two identical hot/warm coffee and alcohol-based designer drinks, and two identical cold coffee and alcohol-based designer drinks. The six competitors with the highest preliminary round scores will compete in the final round. The final round requires competitors to produce two Irish Coffees and two coffee-and-alcohol-based designer drinks. The highest scoring final round competitor will be named the World Coffee in Good Spirits Champion.

You can watch the 2013 Coffee In Good Spirits Championship via this here Livestream link.

The World Cup Tasters Championship is surely one of specialty coffee’s most interactive, exciting spectator sports, and has been picked in the United States in a series of events hosted by Counter Culture Coffee. We love Cup Tasters events for their ample drama and pageantry. This year’s field features competitors from 36 countries, and you can watch the action right here via the World Cup Tasters Championship Livestream.

And WOC Nice will be the official debut event of The World Coffee Roasting Championship, which made its informal pilot debut last year at the SCAE event in Vienna. Here’s some more official language:

Competitors in the three-stage event will be evaluated on their performance evaluating the quality of green coffee (coffee grading), developing a roasting profile that best accentuates the desirable characteristics of that coffee, and on the ultimate cup quality of coffees roasted.

For more on these remarkable competitions, plus links to schedules and rules info, please see these links below. Follow along with Sprudge on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram (@sprudge) for the very best in event coverage from Nice!

World Coffee Roasting Championship

World Cup Tasters Championship

World Latte Art Championship

World Coffee In Good Spirits Championship

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