History of the World Coffee Roasting Championship WCRC)

The World Coffee Roasting Championship (WCRC) is an annual international competition that identifies the world’s top professional coffee roaster. Competitors, each a reigning national roasting champion, are scored on green coffee evaluation, roast profile development, and cup quality. The WCRC is one of seven World Coffee Championships produced by World Coffee Events (WCE), the events arm of the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA).

OVERVIEW

History and Origins

Specialty coffee competitions trace back to the World Barista Championship, first held in Monte Carlo in 2000. As the specialty sector matured through its later coffee waves, roasting itself became recognized as a distinct, judgeable craft rather than a purely industrial process. Roasters shape a green coffee bean’s final flavor as much as the farmer or the barista, and by the early 2010s the SCA’s competition circuit had grown to include disciplines such as the World Cup Tasters Championship and World Latte Art Championship. A dedicated roasting event followed as the next logical addition to that portfolio.

Establishment of the Championship

The inaugural WCRC took place in Nice, France, in 2013, alongside the World of Coffee Trade show. Ten competitors, mostly from Asia and Europe, contested that first edition. Naoki Goto of Japan won the title. The competition has run nearly every year since, expanding from ten competitors in 2013 to more than twenty by the mid-2020s, with representation from producing and consuming countries across five continents.

Organizing Body and Purpose

World Coffee Events, a subsidiary of the Specialty Coffee Association, produces and governs the WCRC. WCE was founded in 2011 through the joint work of the former Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) and Specialty Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE), which unified into the single SCA in 2017. WCE licenses national roasting championships in dozens of countries and sets the rules, scoresheets, and judge certification standards that both national and world events follow. The championship’s stated purpose is to promote roasting excellence, share technical knowledge, and build a professional network among the world’s roasters.

Competition Format and Rules

The WCRC runs over three to four days and three stages. In the first stage, competitors evaluate green coffee samples for defects, screen size, density, and moisture, a skill known in the trade as green grading. In the second stage, competitors sample-roast unfamiliar coffees on production machines, then submit a written Roast Plan predicting the sensory outcome of their final roasts. The plan covers development time, final temperature, weight loss, and expected flavor descriptors. In the third stage, competitors execute a production roast of one single-origin coffee and one blend, built from three green coffees supplied on-site. All coffee left the competition floor under judge control until scoring is complete.

Judging Criteria and Scoring System

Certified judges score competitors against dozens of criteria spanning pre-roasting preparation and production roasting performance. Three components determine the final ranking:

Green grading accuracy, comparing a competitor’s evaluation against a reference score
Roast plan accuracy, measuring how closely the finished roast matches the competitor’s stated predictions
Production cupping, a double-blind sensory evaluation of the finished single-origin and blend roasts

Scores across these categories are totaled, with a maximum possible score in the high 600s under the current scoresheet. Judges use the SCA’s standardized cupping protocols, similar to those applied in other WCE competitions such as the World Cup Tasters Championship. Ties are broken first by single-origin production cupping score, then by Roast Plan score, then by descriptor accuracy.

Championship Categories

Unlike performance-based events such as the World Barista Championship or World Latte Art Championship, the WCRC has no separate categories or divisions. Every competitor completes the same green grading, single-origin, and blend roasting tasks under identical conditions, using identical green coffee and roasting equipment supplied by event sponsors.

Qualification Process

Only reigning national roasting champions may compete at the WCRC. Each SCA-licensed Competition Body, typically a national coffee association, runs its own roasting championship using WCE-approved rules and scoresheets. The winner of each national event earns the sole right to represent that country at the world final. A competitor may represent only one Competition Body per competition year, and no country may send more than one delegate. This single-entry structure mirrors qualification for sister events including the World Brewers Cup and World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship.

Past Winners

Year	Champion	Nationality	Host City & Country
2013	Naoki Goto	Japan	Nice, France
2014	Yun-Chuan Jacky	Taiwan	Rimini, Italy
2015	Audun Sørbotten	Norway	Gothenburg, Sweden
2016	Alexandru Niculae	Romania	Shanghai, China
2017	Rubens Gardelli	Italy	Guangzhou, China
2018	Vladimir Nenashev	Russia	Rimini, Italy
2019	Arseny Kuznetsov	Russia	Taipei, Taiwan
2020–2021	No championship held (cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic)	—	—
2022	Felix Teiretzbacher	Austria	Milan, Italy
2023	Taufan Mokoginta	Indonesia	Taipei, Taiwan
2024	TaiYang Liu	China	Copenhagen, Denmark
2025	Mikaël Portannier	France	Houston, United States

Notable Milestones and Records

Russia is the only country to have produced back-to-back champions, with Vladimir Nenashev winning in 2018 and Arseny Kuznetsov in 2019. The 2020 and 2021 editions were cancelled outright, the only interruption in the championship’s history, after the SCA cited the COVID-19 pandemic-related travel restrictions affecting the Melbourne and Warsaw host venues.

The 2025 edition in Houston, Texas, was the first WCRC held in North America and drew 23 national champions, its largest field to date. Rubens Gardelli of Italy holds the distinction of winning after three prior unsuccessful attempts at the world final, a rare instance of sustained multi-year competitor development at this level.

Impact on the Coffee Industry

The WCRC has raised roasting from a largely production-floor discipline to a benchmarked, publicly judged craft. Winning roasters commonly see international order growth, invitations to judge national events, and increased demand as consultants and trainers. The championship has also driven standardization: its Roast Plan methodology, which requires competitors to predict sensory and physical outcomes before roasting, has been adopted by national qualifiers, including the US Coffee Championships, and has influenced how roasting is taught more broadly.

Equipment and software sponsors, including production roaster manufacturers and roast-logging platforms, use championship results to demonstrate machine and software capability to the wider coffee trade.

Evolution and Future Developments

The competition’s scoring has shifted over time toward the SCA’s newer Coffee Value Assessment framework, replacing older cupping protocols, and green grading’s weighting in the final score has been adjusted in successive rule revisions. Competitor numbers have grown from ten in 2013 to nearly thirty by the mid-2020s, with the event rotating among Asia, Europe, and, as of 2025, North America. The championship continues to run alongside its six sister WCE events, including the Cezve/Ibrik Championship, as part of the annual World Coffee Championships calendar.

References

World Coffee Championships – Official WCRC page (wcc.coffee)
Specialty Coffee Association (sca.coffee)
Daily Coffee News by Roast Magazine (dailycoffeenews.com)
Sprudge Coffee (sprudge.com)
Perfect Daily Grind (perfectdailygrind.com)
Global Coffee Report (gcrmag.com)
Comunicaffe International (comunicaffe.com)
Cropster Blog (cropster.com)
BeanScene Magazine (beanscenemag.com.au)
Tea & Coffee Trade Journal (teaandcoffee.net)

History of the World Coffee Roasting Championship (WCRC)