Barista and Latte Art championships are well-established and a familiar concept to many today. However, the coffee roasting championship is still a bit of a niche. Yet, it is the one championship where only craftsmanship counts and no show is required. Taste is at the center, and the learning potential is high.
It smells, it cracks, and then Sofia opens the hatch on the Giesen roaster and lets the beans fall into the cooling tray. The roaster from the Kaffeemacher:innen roasting team has just roasted her final batch for the 2024 championships. The coffee she selected is packaged and tasted by a professional jury two days later.
Sofia roasts her blend at the Swiss Roasting Championships
Sofia achieves the highest score and becomes Swiss Roasting Champion 2024, closely followed by Raúl, who finishes second with just a one-point gap and also roasts on our team.
The Swiss Roasting Championships have only taken place for the second time since 2019. 14 participants competed in the championship. Experienced roasters from primarily small and micro-roasteries took part.
The first World Coffee Roasting Championship took place in Nice in 2013. In 2025, the world championship will take place in Houston, where Sofia will represent Switzerland.
The real challenge
Anyone who roasts coffee usually does so on a familiar machine. After a few years, you know its quirks and know exactly how to handle them. This way, you develop a relationship with your own roasting machine and are reluctant to switch to a new system.
However, this was the case at the roasting championship until recently: the participants all roast on a machine unknown to them. At the 2024 roasting championship, this was an electrically operated Giesen 6kg roaster, located at Blossom Coffee in Zug.
Raúl checks the roasted beans on the Giesen 6kg roaster
Anyone who already had experience with Giesen coffee roasters may have been able to get into the system faster than someone roasting on a Giesen machine for the first time.
However, the setting was new for everyone, and that made it interesting. Although as a participant – I as the author took part in it myself – you master your craft, the setting influences you and provides a bit of adrenaline. Time must be kept in view, every handling is monitored, every gram weighed by the observers.
The process
The championship is divided into three parts:
- Green coffee analysis
- Production roasting
- Tasting
Green coffee analysis
When assessing green coffee quality, all participants receive a bag with 350 g of green coffee. This must be checked for density, size, moisture, smell, and color using the provided materials. Afterwards, the participants must examine the coffee for defects and categorize them.
Primary defects are serious flaws that can have a direct impact on the sensory profile. A black, infected, or totally fermented bean, for example, can give the coffee a metallic or medicinal taste.
Green coffee sorted by hand, Cuauhtémoc, Finca la Capella, Mexico
Second-category defects, so-called secondary defects, do not necessarily taste different from intact beans, but in large numbers, they can negatively influence the taste. Similarly, half beans, a secondary defect, are roasted differently and may therefore taste different than intended.
Participants have one hour to sort and analyze the green coffee. The correct measurement and classification of the defects are evaluated here. I hear from judges time and again that coffees are occasionally sorted too precisely, meaning every cosmetic flaw is considered a defect.
It can be helpful to keep in mind here that coffee is a natural product. Or remember a guiding principle from green coffee analysis:
"Ugly is not a defect."
Single Origin and Blend
The participants receive four Arabica coffees to choose from. They are to roast one of them as a single origin. They are to mix three of them into a blend, with each coffee accounting for at least 10%.
The 2024 Swiss Championships were exclusively about putting together a blend. We were sent three green coffees in advance. The origin and processing method were also communicated.
It was a pulped natural from Brazil, a yellow honey from Costa Rica, and a washed coffee from Tanzania. We had to create a blend from these three coffees.
"Number 2 it is" - when selecting the blend
It is generally not advisable to mix coffees with different densities or different post-harvest processes. But that was exactly the task here, and that made it exciting. All participants faced the same challenge.
We roasted the coffee on a sample roaster, tasted it, and described it as follows:
- Brazil: Hazelnut, medium body, some cups slightly icy, citric
- Costa Rica: Yellow fruits, apple, full body and velvety texture, many quakers
- Tanzania: Blackberries, citric, high acidity, medium body, silky texture
Normally we wouldn't mix these three coffees, but that was the task. We all decided to reduce the Brazilian share to the minimum of 10%. Sofia and Raúl chose the same blend: 60% Tanzania, 30% Costa Rica, 10% Brazil. Juan and I chose: 50% Costa Rica, 40% Tanzania, 10% Brazil.
We worked together as a team and gave each other feedback
The evaluation
A panel of experts tastes the coffees in a blind tasting, without knowing who roasted them. Various attributes of the coffee are judged:
- How intense and complex are the aroma and flavor notes?
- How intense is the body and how pleasant is the texture?
- Are acidity and sweetness in balance, and does the acidity structure the cup?
- Is the coffee long-lasting and does it leave a sweet impression?
The jury's evaluation and the comparison with the roasting program yield the final score. Without tasting the production coffee itself, the participants must anticipate how the coffee will taste in the end based on the sample roasts on a sample roaster.
This was a tricky task, as we had to base assumptions on vague conjectures. We knew how the coffees tasted on the sample roaster, but whether the result on the unknown machine turned out exactly as desired was the challenge.
If the roasting program and the description of the sensory profile match the observers' notes, you get a high score. Sofia and Raúl both achieved this.
The Giesen roaster
The roasting was done on a Giesen roasting machine. From 2013 to 2023, Giesen sponsored the world championships, which was logistically complex since multiple small roasting machines had to be transported worldwide. Since 2024, they have been working on Stronghold electric roasters. These machines represent a change in times: they are fully electric, filter the exhaust air, and are therefore a popular alternative in coffee shops where roasting is done live.
Me against myself
What I particularly appreciated about the championships were two things:
First, the exchange with the other participants. Since everyone had the same starting position, there were no secrets or advantages. Everyone roasted according to their philosophy and put the blends together according to their own taste. The atmosphere at the championships was open and collegial – ideal for exchange and learning effects.
Second: The roasting championship is only about the taste and the prediction of how the coffee will taste. There is no jury that pays attention to the show. You are only competing against yourself. If the coffee wasn't roasted well, you are responsible for it yourself.
This character-building competition is emphasized by the fact that all participants have the chance to try the coffees of the others in a blind tasting after the championships. It was a nice moment when I stood at the cupping table with other participants and we tasted the cups, which were labeled with codes, together.
We agreed on which cups we particularly liked and which less so. I had two favorites in this blind tasting: Sofia's and Raúl's.
f.l.t.r., Dario Stoop from Coffee Architects, Sofia Heuri, Raúl Rivero
