Just got the official confirmation from Laura Lee of World Coffee Events: the world’s biggest, most competitive, and most esteemed contest for baristas, the World Barista Championship (WBC), has finalized locations through 2016.
In 2014, the WBC will take place in Rimini, Italy. I chatted with Gianni Cassatini of Nuova Simonelli (WBC Espresso Machine Sponsor) when I saw him in New York last month, and he was pretty excited about the possibility of the WBC heading to Italy, as you can imagine! This will be the first time the WBC has taken place in Italy since 2004, when it was held in Trieste, Italy.
In 2015, the WBC heads to the USA for the first time since 2009 (when it was in Atlanta). The 2015 WBC will be held in Seattle, Washington, in conjunction with the Specialty Coffee Association of America. U.S. baristas: this means the United States Barista Championship will be held a few months prior to the SCAA show, most likely as a stand-alone event. More news to come on that as the dates approach.
I’d like to also add that Barista Magazine is personally INCREDIBLY STOKED that the WBC will be in Seattle in 2015! Why? Because we’ll be celebrating our 10-year anniversary in the exact same city that we premiered Barista Magazine back in 2005! And guess what else? We plan to throw a super amazing party to celebrate our milestone in Seattle, so stay tuned for details on that because you’re all invited!!!
And in 2016, the WBC will head to Dublin, Ireland ”we can’t tell you how excited we are about this. First of all, the WBC has never been held in Ireland, so that’s exciting. Secondly, when we interviewed multi-time Irish Barista Champ Colin Harmon of 3FE in Dublin for his cover feature in the December/January issue of Barista Magazine, he got us really excited about the Dublin cafe scene. Apparently it is just booming! So we here at Barista Magazine can’t wait to be in the thick of it with you guys!
That’s the news, friends. Some pretty exciting stuff! Stay tuned for more details as they come out!
