27 more coffee professionals have punched their tickets to the national stage of competition for the 2025 US Coffee Championships. The fifth Regional Qualifying Event took place over the weekend at Messenger Coffee/The Roasterie in Kansas City, Missouri, holding competitions for the Barista Championship, Brewers Cup, and Coffee in Good Spirits.
Over the course of the three days in KCMO, competitors from across the country came looking to test their mettle in what is the largest Qualifying Event of the season with the three disciplines.. For the Barista competitors, it was the last chance to join the 12 who already earned their way to Nationals via the first qualifier in Raleigh last month. In CIGS, it was the coffee mixologists first chance to move on. Brewers Cup is somewhere in between, already having one quali in Raleigh and then a third one scheduled to take place in Las Vegas next month.
Along with that Vegas event, there is only one remaining event before the full field will be established for all competitions, the Coffee in Good Spirits event in Westchester, Pennsylvania originally scheduled for October. And then the really real fun begins, the start of the 2025 US Coffee Championships and the crowning of new national champions and US representatives at the various World Coffee Championships. Will it be one, more perhaps, of these 27 competitors? Let’s meet them.
Brewers Cup
1. Huxley Owens – Archetype Coffee
2. Jesus Iñiquez – Archetype Coffee
3. Peace Sakulclanuwat – Coffee Project NY
4. Elika Liftee – Onyx Coffee Lab
5. Kyle Ramage – Black & White Coffee Roasters
6. Josh Clements – Amberson Coffee
Coffee in Good Spirits
1. Richelle Taylor – Olympia Coffee
2. Natti Solowoniuk – Novo Coffee
3. Will Johnson – Messenger Coffee
4. Keith Honda – Desert Oasis Coffee
5. Jerry Truong – Independent
6. John Chau Ly – Coffee Project NY
7. Glen Ackerman – Moongoat Coffee Roasters
8. Hugo Cano – Amberson Coffee
9. Chris Dennis – Ox Coffee Roasters
Barista Championship
1. Jason Yeo – Saint Frank Coffee
2. Dakota Graff – Onyx Coffee Lab
3. Miranda Huncovsky – Moongoat Coffee Roasters
4. Rafael Levy Diner – Onyx Coffee Lab
5. Cory Sponsler – The Coffee Movement
6. Jak Michael Ryan – Proud Mary Coffee
7. Circle Chan – The Coffee Movement
8. Olivia Morris – Little Bear Coffee
9. Gray Kaufman – Independent
10. Christian Ortega – Olympia Coffee Roasters
11. Alex Sciarrotta – Narrative Coffee
12. Christian Gutierrez – Moongoat Coffee Roasters
Congratulations to everyone moving on!
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
All photos by US Coffee Championships unless otherwise noted
