Japan’s Hidenori Izaki wins 2014 World Barista Championship

Hidenori Izaki from Japan has won the 2014 World Barista Championship (WBC). Hidenori won the final round of the WBC, which took place on 12 June in Rimini, Italy at World of Coffee (WOC) as part of the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe's annual coffee event. Kapo Chiu of Hong Kong won second place, Christos Loukakis of Greece won third place, Craig Simon of Australia won fourth place, Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood of the United Kingdom won fifth place, and William Hernandez of El Salvador won sixth place. In other world championship news, Stefanos Domatiotis from Greece has been crowned the 2014 World Brewers Cup Champion (WBRC). Rubens Gardelli of Italy won second place, Asli Yaman of Turkey won third place, Odd-Steinar Tøllefsen of Norway won fourth place, Ju-Ying “Lulu” Wei of Taiwan won fifth place, and Petra Strelecka of the Czech Republic won sixth place. In the World Coffee Roasting Championship, it was Yu-Chuan Jacky of Taiwan who won first place. Moonkyu Jang of South Korea won second place and Joanna Alm of Sweden won third place.
                                                                    
A total of 54 national barista champions, 27 national brewers cup champions and nine world coffee roasting champions competed in the 15th World Barista Championship, 4th World Brewers Cup and 2nd World Coffee Roasting Championship. All three championships took place over four competition days. More than 5000 coffee fans from Europe and around the world attended the event. More than 57,000 unique viewers streamed the competitions live online. To see the complete awards ceremony or to view competitor presentations at each of the world championships, visit http://new.livestream.com/worldcoffee (World Barista Championship) and http://new.livestream.com/worldcoffee (World Brewers Cup). For more information visit http://www.worldcoffeeevents.org Image featured is Hidenori Izaki from Japan. Credit: World Coffee Events