Berg Wu (吳則霖) on Saturday won the World Barista Championship in Dublin, making him the first Taiwanese to win the honor since the competition started in 2000.
The four-day competition pitted national champions from more than 50 countries at the World of Coffee Show in the Irish capital.
The competitors each had to prepare four espressos, four cappuccinos and four original signature drinks in a 15-minute performance set to music.
The top 12 competitors advanced to the semi-finals, of which six made it to the finals.
The prizes Wu won include an espresso machine, a grinder, a nine-day trip to Brazil and a trip to Swiss Water’s decaffeination plant in Vancouver.
The other five finalists were from Canada, France, Japan, the Netherlands and the US.
Wu majored in electrical engineering in college and earned his master’s degree from National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of Electronics Engineering.
He worked as an engineer for several years and started to sell coffee in Taipei in 2004 until he opened his own shop, “Simple Kaffa,” in 2011.
Wu has been Taiwan’s national champion at the World Barista Championship for the past three years, and ranked seventh in the 2014 competition.
Since 98 percent of coffee is water, good coffee needs to use quality water, Wu said.
The water needs to have the right pH, total dissolved solids value, and mineral content, he said.
Asked about his personal and professional goals for the next decade, Wu said he would like to share his experience and knowledge so he can “inspire and help others who would like to start a journey in specialty coffee,” according to the World Barista Championship Web site.
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