Rubber, meet road. Here it is, Finals day of the 2022 World Barista Championship and World Brewers Cup. Taking place as part of the Melbourne International Coffee Expo, it has been three days of whirlwind competitions action across the two event stages. And 28 hours of routine running later, we’re down to the final six competitors in each competition.

It would be difficult to overstate how big of an impact this upper echelon of competition has on all downstream levels. Ubiquitous use of natural and anaerobic fermented coffee, freeze-distilled milk, shrubs, all somewhat common occurrences at regional levels of competition now that initially made waves at the top. (I predict we will be seeing quite a few routines in the future where judges are given thermometers and instructions to only drink the espresso course once a certain temperature has been reached.) This year is sure to be no different, and it is the novel approaches of these Finals runs—the ones that scored the best with the judges time in and time out—that get picked up on in later competition cycles.

The same can be said of the World Brewers Cup. The rise in popularity of brewers like the Origami Drippers and brewing techniques like bypass water can all be traced back to high-performing WBrC routines. Anything you are seeing here that is new and exciting, expect to see it a lot more.

There’s a lot riding on these last routines. More than just the final ranking order for the two events’ competitors, these 12 run-throughs are going to echo on in coffee competitions for years to come. And a lot of it depends on how well they do tomorrow, Friday, September 30th at the World Coffee Championships in Melbourne, Australia. Here are the Finalists for the World Barista Championship and World Brewers Cup.

World Barista Championship

Claire Wallace, United Kingdom
Benjamin Put, Canada
Takayuki Ishitani, Japan
Patrik Rolf, Sweden
Morgan Eckroth, United States
Anthony Douglas, Australia

World Brewers Cup

Shih Yuan Hsu (Sherry), Taiwan
Jhon Christhoper, Indonesia
Simen Andersen, Norway
Elika Liftee, United States
Tomas Taussig, Czech Republic
Elysia Tan, Singapore

Finals schedules for both the World Barista Championship and World Brewers Cup will be added here once they are available.

Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.

New Rules of Coffee banner advertising an illustrated guide to the essential rules for enjoying coffee