The Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) has released updated Rules and Regulations for the 2023 World Barista Championship (WBC), World Brewers Cup (WBrC), World Cup Tasters Championship, and Cezve/Ibrik Championship.
The WBrC criteria for evaluation have undergone significant changes to refocus the competition on evaluating a competitor’s coffee brewing skills, and will also have major format changes, including introducing a Semi-Finals round in 2023.
The WBC updates introduce two new types of scoring scales, and adjusted category weightings to better reflect the skills and areas of focus for the competitions. The milk beverage course can now be prepared using plant-based or other animals’ milk, and world competitors will have the option of brewing their espresso using a range of group head temperatures.
Scoresheets for both the WBC and WBrC have been re-designed for clarity and ease of use. The World Cup Tasters and Cezve/Ibrik Championships updates focus on small language changes for clarity and consistency across the WCCs.
All World Coffee Championships (WCC) rules and regulations updates are overseen by the Competitions Strategic Committee (CSC), a volunteer leadership group focused on evolving the WCCs in line with strategic goals.
“We are delighted to see the competitions changing with the release of the rules and regulations for the Athens World Coffee Championships,” says Bart Deprez, CSC Chair.
“These updates are rooted in the strategic objectives that the CSC envisioned to keep the competitions moving forward, and have been in place for many years. We look to seeing more innovation on stage in Athens, and continuing the pace of competitions evolution in the future.”
According to the SCA, the WBC and WBrC updates mark the largest competition changes since before the pandemic, opening up new service possibilities for competitors and major changes in how judges score and evaluate performances.
Alongside these rules updates, the SCA is announcing the expansion of the espresso machine sponsorship criteria to include allowing fully-automatic machines to bid for the 2024 World Latte Art and World Coffee in Good Spirits Championships, alongside traditional machines.
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