Canadian National Brewers Cup + Canadian National Cup Tasters Competition 2025!

 Our team just returned from Montreal for coffee competition! Kristen B. (our retail operations manager ) and Sebastian (our roaster) both competed in The Canadian National Brewers Cup and The Canadian National Cup Tasters Competitions. They put in many hours of practice and preparation to bring their best to Montreal to compete amongst some of the best coffee professionals in Canada! Kristen B. made it through to the top 12 in Canada in semi-finals and Sebastian scored really well in preliminaries! We are so proud of both of them for their professionalism, hard work and passion for coffee!

We also had the opportunity to serve our coffee during the competition on the brew bar hosted by Apex Coffee!

In the Brewer’s Cup competition, three individual beverages are prepared and served by the competitor to a panel of judges. Essentially, competitors complete two coffee services. The first coffee service is compulsory in which competitors prepare three beverages from whole bean coffee provided by the competition. In the second coffee service, open service, competitors can use any whole bean coffee that they choose and accompany their preparation of it with a presentation. Kristen's presentation took the judges on a journey where they explored how memory impacts our aroma experience. Check out her full set on our Instagram page.

In the Cup Tasters competition, three cups are placed in a triangle. Two cups are identical coffees and one is different. The competitor must use their sense of smell and taste, as well as attention and experience, to identify the odd cup as quickly as they can. There are eight triangles in each round. Sebastian only required a cupping spoon and his sense of taste to compete in Cup Tasters!

(descriptions for Brewers Cup and Cup Tasters from SCA website).

A big thank you to producer Diego Bermudez for Kristen's coffee she used in competition. Diego is a amazing producer from Colombia who is re-shaping how we look at coffee. His Hachi Project in Cauca, Colombia focuses on leveraging bio technology to preserve coffees DNA. A big thank you as well to Icosa Brewhouse for gifting us the brewing carafes Kristen used called the Avensi Cyclone Sensory Carafe. The aeration wave design really enhanced how the aroma was diffused and suspended for the judges to experience.

Thank you to all the organizers and hosts, SCA Canada, Apex Coffee, Origine 117 and Cafe Saint Henri. Also, a big congratulations to all the competitors this year and to the winners who will both move on to represent Canada in Indonesia in the spring!