We’re still buzzin’ like a sensory judge on Finals day over this weekend’s US Barista Championship.
In case you missed it, Kay Cheon of Dune Coffee Roasters in Santa Barbara, California did what we all knew he would do at some point. He won it all. (Check out all of our live coverage of every routine in Round One, the Semi-Finals, and Finals.)
And while the obvious star from weekend is Cheon, there’s so much more to the Barista Championship beyond who takes first. And with the event now solidly in the rearview, we are able to zoom out and take a broader view of all that transpired, and some trends begin to come into focus. More than simple competition fodder, these trends have a way of trickling out into cafes across the globe. Barista championships are a sort of testing ground of ideas, the most successful of which often impacting the greater coffee industry. It’s the bleeding edge of specialty coffee. Natural processing, anaerobic fermentation, the Mahlkönig EK43 grinder, these things are all now ubiquitous in specialty coffee and can trace their popularity back to barista competitions.
There were four main takeaways from this year’s US Barista Championship. Four things that may ripple forward into future competitions, and perhaps into cafes across the globe. So let’s dive in!
The Evolution of the Milk Course
There is no course in the barista competition more in flux than the milk course. It’s been that way for a few years now, and still, it continues to change. The primary movers of this change have been the adoption of the freeze distillation and/or cryodesiccation process and the rule change allowing alternative milks. Competitors have long looked for the sweetest, creamiest milk they could get their hands on, and traditionally this was done through milk sourcing. But now, freeze distillation and cryodesiccation allow competitors to boost the fat content and sweetness of their milks to unheard of levels. And with the introduction of alternative milks as well as lactose-free dairy, competitors are able to create bespoke milk blends to best suit their espressos. At USBC 2025 we saw blends including oat, macadamia, pistachio, and even toasted coconut.
This all reached a fever pitch in 2024, and this year competitors appear to be reckoning with the downstream effects. In particular, how does an espresso—often a Gesha or something equally subtle—shine through all that extra fat content? The answer for many competitors was smaller drinks with shorter, ristretto-style shots. While the espressos in the other courses orbited around a 1:2 ratio of coffee in to espresso out, some going as high as 1:3, the milk course trended in the other direction. 1:1.5 was frequent, and there was even a few competitors going as low as 1:1. This style of espresso allows the flavors to punch through the rich, coating milk.
Another milk course-related trend we noted this year was its placement in the course order. In particular, a significant number of competitors chose to lead off their routines with the milk course, which is historically uncommon in the barista competition format. There may be a number of factors leading to this. There’s the fact competitors generally want to end their routine with a bang, and the milk course doesn’t quite provide those punchy, memorable flavors (not one competitor at USBC 2025 offered their milk course third). The goosed-up milk fat drinks certainly factored into it showing up in the lead-off spot, generally followed by the signature beverage. This is perhaps due to the sig bev requiring more time to construct than the espresso, which allows more space for the palate to recover from the coating milk drink.
There are other considerations that may have led to this as well. For one, many competitors chose to flash-chill their espressos for their sig bevs. And in order to have time to properly cool them, that course would need to appear later on in the set. All in all, it’s a milk course that continues to evolve and remain in flux—and mastering it remains key to wracking up points on stage.
The Hottest Coffees At USBC 2025
There were two standout names from this year’s competition, one a producer and the other a variety. Julio Madrid was the big name in coffee production at the 2025 USBC. Appearing in four different routines—and with a number of different varieties at that—the director of Finca La Riveria and Finca Milan in Risaralda, Colombia was most frequent producer collaborator this year, beating out famed Gesha producer Jamison Savage of Finca Deborah in Panama, who was part of three routines. Jamison’s name is a familiar one in competition, and while Julio Madrid isn’t exactly unknown in specialty coffee circles, his frequency this year was certainly not on my bingo card.
But the biggest name this year was Ombligon. An Ethiopian landrace variety coffee that has since been cultivated in Colombia, Ombligon was used by two competitors this year. Those two competitors? USBC Champion Kay Cheon and USBC 2nd Place finisher Isaiah Sheese, respectively. Ombligon was also the coffee used by last year’s winner, 2024 USBC Champion Frank La.
All of which to say, that Ombligon is so hot right now, Ombligon. Expect to see it in a cafe near you in the coming years, that is if the barista competitors don’t snatch it all up for themselves first.
A Stronghold on Competition Roasting
There was another name we heard quite a bit when talking about competition coffees, one that we didn’t ever print because it seemed a little bit too inside baseball, but it is significant nonetheless. Pretty much any competitor who mentioned the roaster they used for their coffee stated they used the Stronghold. Most competitors mentioned the S7, which has an 850g capacity, or roughly two pounds—that’s more or less a sample roaster. But it appears to be more than just batch size.
In his post-Finals interview, Proud Mary’s Jak Ryan mentioned having to essentially relearn how to roast on it because it’s so fundamentally different than other roasters (which former USBC Champion and interviewer Kyle Ramage agreed with resoundingly). This makes sense. The Stronghold is vertically oriented and relies on electricity and halogen heating, as opposed to the traditional gas-powered drum roaster. Now, I am not a roaster so I can’t tell you exactly how all this impacts the roast, but what I can tell you is that it appears competition coffees are trending even further away from production coffees. Not only are the coffees themselves different, but now the machinery—and the roasting method itself—being used to produce them is different as well. This, I think, is significant; it speaks to the level of intentionality happening at every step of the process of competing at an event like USBC, but it’s also further evidence of just how far removed many competition-level coffees have become from the daily drinkers most coffee lovers get to enjoy.
Espresso Goes to the Day Spa
This trend is certainly not new but it continues to intensify. The amount of gadgets being used to bring out the most in the espresso has exploded. There are the frozen spheres shots get pulled over to lock in volatile aromatics. There are the auto-tampers that deliver consistent and prices pressure creating the puck. And then there are the distribution tools. So many distribution tools. There are devices like the Autocomb that help break up clumps inside the bed to promote a more even extraction. This year the big addition was the NCD Pulse, a new distribution tool by WBC Champion Sasa Sestic that uses vibration technology to improve “vertical distribution” of the espresso grounds. These coffees are getting pampered.
Bonus Investigation: Who Took Our Drink Tokens?!
Not exactly a trend—or at least we certainly hope it isn’t—but someone took our drink tokens and we find this quite disappointing.
So there we were, getting all the cameras set up for the announcements of who would be moving on to the Finals. Thanks to the kindness of hosts Black & White, we had received two (2) drink tokens for the night’s after-party, which we left at our command center unattended for no more than five minutes while we got everything ready to bring you our industry-leading live on-site coverage of this incredible event.
And in that short window, some sticky-fingered fucker made off with our tokens! Snatched them right off the table.
If you have any leads that lead to the safe return of our beloved drink vouchers, please reach out via the contact form or name them in the comments on social media. And if your are the vile filcher who did this, shaaaaaaaame. May your espressos channel and be sour and your milk curdle forevermore.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
