Citing ‘Unrealistic Timelines,’ Australia Won’t Compete in Two 2023 World Coffee Championships

A crowd gathered at the 2022 world coffee championships in September in Melbourne, Australia. SCA press photo.

The nonprofit Australian Specialty Coffee Association (ASCA) announced today that it will not be organizing 2023 national Barista and Brewers Cup championships.

Thereby, the country will also not have representation in the World Barista Championship and World Brewers Cup Championship, two events that have historically propelled industry innovation while cementing some measure of industry celebrity status among high-ranking competitors.

In an Instagram post today, the ASCA cited “unrealistic timelines” put forth by World Coffee Events, a sibling nonprofit to the United States- and Europe-based Specialty Coffee Association that produces seven world coffee championships.

“Given the unrealistic WCE timelines for Brewers Cup and Barista Competitions, it has made it impossible for ASCA to run the standard Regional and Nationals competitions to the very high standards that we now hold ourselves to and that all our members and competitors are accustomed to,” the ASCA wrote.

The 2023 world Barista and Brewers Cup championships are scheduled to take place in June alongside the SCA’s annual World of Coffee event in Athens, Greece. That will be nearly nine months after the most recent World Barista and Brewers Cup events, which happened to take place in Melbourne.

The ASCA announcement comes despite the fact that the SCA has a long history of hosting world championship events in conjunction with World of Coffee. World championships came to Europe in June both prior to and since the merger of the SCAA and the SCAE to form the SCA, including Budapest in 2017, Amsterdam in 2018 and Berlin in 2019.

The announcement also comes amidst a recent wave of success among Australian competitors on the international stage. Australia’s Anthony Douglas was named the 2022 World Barista Champion in August in front of a crowd gathered in Melbourne.

“This decision was not taken lightly by the ASCA Board, but unfortunately, we have decided that we will be conducting limited competitions in the 2023 season,” the ASCA wrote. “This re-scheduling will enable us to better facilitate the local competitions and ensure we are fully equipped and aligned for the full 2024 season.”

Australian competitors are expected to compete in four of the other 2023 world championship events.

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