In a mixed-format style, the WAC will include both online and live competition.
BY KATRINA YENTCH
BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE
Photos courtesy of World AeroPress Championships
With competitions at the World of Coffee event canceled this year once again, we miss another opportunity to connect in person with our global community. For those of you missing the giant international parties that are global competitions, you can still get a taste of them this year with the return of the World AeroPress Championship!
This year, the World AeroPress Championship invites local competitors to go head-to-head in their regions if they are in a safe place to do so. However, for the countries that are still in the midst of restrictions and vaccine distributions, the organizers have created a way for the competitions to be held online. The in-person format involves the classic knockout style, in which competitors will be eliminated over the course of several rounds while judges point to their favorite coffee out of three for each round. The online format will require competitors to buy in through a ticketing system to receive their competition coffees in the mail. They’ll submit their recipes to the judges to replicate and taste at home. For a full breakdown, you can check it out here.
The current title holder for World AeroPress Champion is Wendelien Van Bunnik of the Netherlands, who is excited to see the return of the competition. “At this moment, it’s not quite sure yet how and when the Dutch AeroPress Championship will be held, but when it does I’d love to help out anyway I can so I want to keep my hands free!” she says. “Same goes for W.A.C. … I love the fact that it’s taking place again despite all COVID restrictions, and I want to be available to both the organization of W.A.C. as well as people who are considering competing and are looking for some support in any way.”
The WAC’s network of countries began hosting their local competitions on May 1, and will continue through September 30, so be sure to stay tuned to find out where your closest opportunity is to participate. Regardless of which style your country is capable of hosting, the final competition takes place online in December in Melbourne, Australia, where a “surrogate barista” will work with national champions to replicate their recipes for the judges.
At this point in COVID-19 barista life, we’ve seen a lot of innovative ways to promote friendly competitions online. This style of judging may look a little familiar to some, as The Barista League utilized the “surrogate barista” style during their own online competition. The event group’s YouTube-recorded sessions introduced a surrogate barista in London to replicate cocktail recipes for the Mystery Box Challenge, in which competitors had to use a set of surprise ingredients to create a winning cocktail. The WAC is fond of this style too, and used it during the first few years of the competition.
Aside from a hybrid competition format, a few big changes are coming to the World AeroPress Championship to prioritize safety and amp up this year’s recipes. To make sure judges are practicing COVID protocols, there will be no cupping bowls shared—which may be obvious for many, but with so many changes on restrictions, it makes sense to spell it out. The biggest change this year is that the recipe must use 18 grams of coffee or less to produce a winning cup, a concept they’ve decided will set apart a world champion.
“I think what WAC have done with multiple judges evaluating each brew is super clever,” comments Steve Moloney of The Barista League, which also owns the national hosting rights of the World AeroPress Championship in Sweden. “It also slightly changes the focus to making a robust recipe that is replicable and consistent—which I think is a fantastic move. WAC has always been ahead of the curve with putting on fun events and competitions so I am really looking forward to see how this pans out!”
It is inevitable that many things will change between now and December; for that reason, aspiring competitors should definitely start crafting their recipes, but should also follow the latest updates from the organizers about how the structure will change through the year. One thing is certain, and it’s that the 2021 champion will be crowned this year!
