After two days of intense preliminary round performances, the 54 national barista champions gathered here at the World Barista Championship in Rimini, Italy, gathered on stage to hear which 12 of them had scored high enough to qualify them for the semifinal round. If you thought winning on a national level was tough, rest assured, earning a position among the elite 12 competitors who will compete in the 2014 WBC semifinal round is something else entirely. There were a lot of tears and broken hearts from those who did not make it to the next round, but also extraordinary excitement and sense of accomplishment from the 12 who did.
The semifinal round of the WBC begins at 10 a.m. (Rimini time) on Wednesday. The announcement of the 6 finalists will take place at 5:30 p.m. Stay tuned to Barista Magazine’s blog for all the photos, breaking news, and emotion from this preeminent coffee competition.
Want to learn more about the 12 Semifinalists in the 2014 World Barista Championship? Barista Magazine has written profiles of all of them. See links below!
Pete Williams, Barista Champion of Ireland
Hidenori Izaki, Barista Champion of Japan
Ben Put, Barista Champion of Canada
William Hernandez, Barista Champion of El Salvador
Kapo Chiu, Barista Champion of Hong Kong
Coen van Sprang, Barista Champion of the Netherlands
Tse-Lin (Berg) Wu, Barista Champion of Taiwan
Erna Tosberg, Barista Champion of Germany
Craig Simon, Barista Champion of Australia
Laila Ghambari, Barista Champion of the United States
Maxwell Colonna-Dashwood, Barista Champion of the United Kingdom
Chris Loukakis, Barista Champion of Greece
