Meet the 2024 World Brewers Cup Champion
An interview with Martin Wölfl
Austria’s Martin Wölfl won the World Brewers Cup Championship, held from 12 to 14 April at the Specialty Coffee Expo in Chicago, United States.
During his routine, Martin highlighted how six innovations have inspired the coffee industry and himself as a barista to create new experiences for others.
“One of my favorite moments as a barista is creating anticipation for the cup and sharing my flavor profile with you,” Martin shared with the judges during his performance.
For his winning brew, Martin used a natural anaerobic processed geisha from Finca Maya in Panama. The coffee featured a medium-intensity aroma with notes of honeydew, rosehip, and cherry.
“The farmers picked the ripest cherries, which led to the sweetness in the cup, paired with the floral characteristic the geisha has to offer,” Martin explained to the judges. “The flavors include honeydew, cherry, and pineapple.”
Martin employed several tools for his brewing method, including Apex Water, Sibarist fast paper filters, the Comb distribution tool, Melodrip with a custom mount, and the Orea Brewer V4. He divided his pour into three stages: 60 milliliters at 40 seconds, 50 milliliters at 1 minute 20 seconds, and 100 milliliters at 2 minutes.
We spoke to the champion in to find out how he got into coffee, why he thinks he won, and what’s next.
Please introduce yourself to our audience.
Hey everyone, my name is Martin Wölfl and I am from Vienna, Austria. I am the co-owner of Wildkaffee Austria and 25 Grams Cold Brew Coffee. Back in 2016 I discovered my passion for coffee while I was studying Economics in Vienna. After several workshops and barista courses. I started to work as a barista and started to compete. After a third place in 2019, and a second place in 2020, I won the Austrian Brewers Cup title in 2021, 2022 and 2023.
Tell us about the first time you had specialty coffee and what made you want to do it for a living?
When I was first visiting a specialty coffeeshop I wanted to try something new for me and ordered a filter-coffee. The first sip was a taste I had never experienced before. I wanted to find out more about filter coffee and bought a grinder, a brewing device and a bag of coffee and went back home. This was the moment when everything started!
After this visit, I started reading books, visited cuppings and workshops and went deeper and deeper into the science of coffee. Once my wife, Anna, asked me why I didn’t entertain the idea of becoming a professional barista. After this conversation, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Why did you decide to compete?
I started to compete to force myself to jump out of my comfort zone and learn new things. My goal was to work closer with producers at the origin and the partners of the equipment I am using to understand each of the variables even better. I am quite sure that we can all learn from each other through competition and grow together. But I also wanted to learn my lessons. When you are competing you will automatically make a lot of mistakes. But its about learning from the defeats and make yourself to a better version.
Why do you think you won?
Competition is like a puzzle. You put it together piece by piece to finally present everything within 10 minutes on the stage. So there are many aspects that came together at the right time in Chicago.
First of all the team. Together with my coach Janine de Laar and my Wildkaffee team, we put together a routine that was so much fun for myself and where I can put all my heart in. The topic was innovations which are driven from the people behind the scenes – and working together with these people I call my friends felt super good. With the Panama Geisha from the farm Finca Maya, processed from “Lost Origin” we found the perfect coffee with a completely new and innovative tasting profile. But this wouldn’t be possible without the support from my friends of OREA, Sibarist, APAX Lab and Nucleus Coffee Tools.
Everyone who was involved put it so much effort – so I am glad that it paid off.
What’s your advice for baristas who are thinking about competing?
My first advice would be: just do it!
Competitions are a great opportunity to get yourself out of your comfort zone. It forces you to think and learn about each variable in brewing coffee and so you will learn and grow as a barista but also as a human being. Competition gives you a perfect platform for networking, meeting producers, working on new tools and implement these learnings to your daily work.
But its also a challenging time, mentally and physically and there are many ups and downs through this journey. It needs time to practice, discipline and ambition.
My advice is that you have to learn your lessons, never give up, never stop trying, never stop believing, take it seriously, have fun and read the rules. After five years of competing and many ups and downs I know exactly that competitions are a roller coaster, but your day will come. Regardless the final result, you already won when you sign in.
What’s next for you?
One of my main goals for this year is to inspire as many people as possible with masterclasses and talks. I also see it as my mission to draw even more people´s attention on how delicious and fascination filter coffee can be. Another goal is to work on new products and brewing tools. So there are already many things in the pipeline. If you want to get information up front you can sign in at www.mw.coffee
I will also launch a new “Brewing series” with our roastery Wildkaffee and we are working on a relaunch for our cold brew company 25Grams Cold Brew Coffee.
So I am really looking forward to the next chapters.