After cancellations, postponement, and general hesitancy stemming from the COVID-19 outbreak, the World Barista Championship, World Brewers Cup, and World Cup Tasters Championship are officially on the books for 2021. Announced today, July 19th by the Specialty Coffee Association, the three world coffee championship events will be taking place at the end of October in Milan, Italy.
October will mark two-and-a-half years since the last World Barista Championship and Brewers Cup were last held, all the way back in April of 2019 in Boston; Cup Tasters took place just a few months later in June in Berlin. The 2020 event, originally scheduled to take place in Melbourne in May at the Melbourne International Coffee Expo, was initially postponed until November before being altogether canceled after it became apparent that the pandemic wasn’t slowing down. The competitions have hung in limbo since then, until today.
All three World Coffee Championships will now be part of HOST Milan—one of the world’s largest trade shows for the catering and hospitality industries—occurring October 22nd through the 26th. We’ve covered HOST in the past, which has become one of the premiere events for coffee brands to debut their latest and greatest. When seeking out a host location for the three yet-scheduled coffee events, HOST was a natural fit.
“We are extremely pleased to announce the 2021 World Barista Championship, World Brewers Cup, and World Cup Tasters Championship will be featured at HostMilano this October,” said Yannis Apostolopoulos, SCA Chief Executive Officer. “We’ve always found massive value in attending Host and following the hardship and disruption of the past year, I’m excited to return and bring our community to this wonderful show.”
But it is not all good news on the World Coffee Championships front. Citing the ”unfortunate recent spike in COVID-19 cases and corresponding regulations in Taiwan,” the SCA and Taiwan Coffee Association have announced the postponement of the World Latte Art, World Coffee in Good Spirits, and World Coffee Roasting Championship scheduled to occur in November at the Taiwan International Coffee Show in Taipei. Per the announcement, the SCA and TCA are “working to identify opportunities to host World Coffee Championships in Taipei at a future date.”
For more information about the newly scheduled events as well as the postponements, visit the World of Coffee official website.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
