On April 12th, Bala of Taiwan won the 2026 World Latte Art Championship. This story was widely reported, including here on Sprudge. But now all mentions of Taiwan as they relate to Bala’s historic win have been removed and replaced from the official World Coffee Championships website, which today credits Bala’s win to Chinese Taipei.
The distinction is fraught. The Republic of China, better known as Taiwan, has long claimed sovereignty while the People’s Republic of China claims ownership over the island nation. The term “Chinese Taipei” is often used in international competitions, like the Olympics, to denote Taiwan. In essence, the name allows Taiwan to participate in international competitions separately from China while also not offending the PRC, whose “policy is to keep [Taiwan] isolated on the world stage and disagrees with any use of ‘Taiwan’ as an official title, in order to prevent Taiwan from gaining international recognition for ‘independent statehood’ separate from the PRC.”
The World Coffee Championships have historically used Taiwan, the term generally preferred by the competitors and the Taiwan Coffee Association. The use of the name in WCC events goes back to at least 2007, when Taiwan was first represented by Van Lin in the World Barista Championship. Sprudge has record of it being used in 2010, the first year we covered the championships. In 2016 Berg Wu won the World Barista Championship representing Taiwan.
Per the Taipei Times, the switch to Chinese Taipei on the WCC’s website was made on April 28th. And indeed Chinese Taipei has now replaced all mentions of Taiwan, including the removal of an image of Bala standing on the WCC stage with the screen behind him noting he represents Taiwan (seen below). Also no longer available on the WCC website is any historical rankings information for any of the seven World Coffee Championship events; the links to the past rankings are still on the website but they no longer direct to the (uneditable) PDF files listing the rankings, competitor names, and countries represented. The PDFs are still accessible via the most recent site snapshot on the Web Archive, taken April 17th of this year.
The WCC has also amended the names on their YouTube channel. Bala’s routines for both 2026 and 2023 (which took place in Taipei) now list Chinese Taipei instead of Taiwan, though the audio and in-video graphics still use Taiwan.
Following the change, the Taiwan Coffee Association released the following statement:
The association has been fighting for the maintenance of the TAIWAN representative name for 19 years, the name event has been discussed many times since 19 years, and after several intense battles over the years, we have worked hard to maintain TAIWAN to the present. This happened again this year, and we were caught off guard but constantly fighting and communicating, and it was ultimately fruitless. As of now, we are still working on it, we really won’t be willing to easily put TAIWAN, a representative name that’s been keeping it so long.
After receiving the notification letter, in order to ensure that the Taiwanese players who are going to go abroad can continue to participate in the world competition fairly, I hope everyone can rationally and continuously support our players, stand on the world stage, use their results and strength, so that everyone will remember that we come from “TAIWAN”.
The response from Taiwanese coffee professionals has been one of shock and disappointment. “This has been truly difficult to witness,” says noted international coffee professional Freda Yuan. “Taiwan is a self-governing, democratic country with its own constitution, military, passport, presidential elections and government. As a country, we have long fought for recognition on the international stage—and moments like this feel like a step backwards.”
Freda Yuan is a multi-time World Cup Tasters Finalist, Director of Coffee at Origin Coffee, and author of the book Sip & Slurp. She continues:
“I competed and thrived in the space SCA created. It was a community built on inclusion and passion, and I cherished that. As a buyer, I don’t discriminate by country of origin, because I firmly believe producers should never be punished for political power plays. We are all equal—humans doing our best to grow and craft the finest coffee we can. That’s why the sudden renaming by the SCA, with no explanation offered, has hit so hard. This is an industry I fell in love with, and it deserves more than that.”
2016 World Barista Champion Berg Wu recently took to Facebook to voice his concern with the change, saying:
“Over the past few days, I saw that World Coffee Events/World Coffee Championships changed the representation name of Taiwanese competitors from Taiwan to Chinese Taipei… For the competitor and for Taiwan’s coffee community, this is not just a simple adjustment of wording.” Wu continues, “To me, Taiwan is not just a name. It is an identity and a shared memory built by many competitors, coaches, judges, cafes, roasters, and all the consumers who have supported us along the way. I understand that international organizations may face pressure and considerations across different markets and regulations. However, I believe that any change regarding how competitors are represented should come with a more transparent explanation, and should involve proper communication with the competitors, competition bodies, and coffee communities directly involved… To me, I come from Taiwan. And I hope future Taiwanese competitors can be recognized by the world as Taiwan.”
Sprudge Media Network has reached out to the World Coffee Championships for comment, which was unavailable as of press time. This story is developing.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
