2018 World Coffee Roasting Champion announced
l-r: Veda Viraswami, Vladimir Nenashev, Yoshiyuki Nakamura
Vladimir Nenashev of Mosaic Coffee, representing Russian Federation, has been named as the 2018 World Coffee Roasting Champion.
The Japanese champion Yoshiyuki Nakamura of Mamepolepole came in second, while third place went to Veda Viraswami of Le Café Alain Ducasse in France.
Twenty-three WCRC national champions competed in this year’s event, which took place over four days in conjunction with the Sigep show in Rimini, Italy.
This year’s global competition involved three stages, including pre-roasting and green coffee evaluation, a production roasting stage designed to follow each competitor’s roasting plan, and a sensory evaluation stage, in which a group of calibrated judges performed a “double blind” cupping of the coffees.
The 2018 champion, American Ian Picco of Topeca Coffee, placed 18th.
