World Latte Art Championship

The World Latte Art Championship is the world championship for latte art — the poured and etched patterns that sit on top of a milk coffee. It is one of the seven World Coffee Championships, and the one where the drink is judged entirely by eye: not on how the espresso tastes, but on what the barista can draw with steamed milk.¹

That is the split worth holding onto. The World Barista Championship also has competitors make milk drinks, but scores them on flavour — how the espresso and milk taste together — and explicitly ignores the pattern in the foam. Latte art gets its own separate championship precisely so the picture can be judged on its own terms.¹

It is run by the Specialty Coffee Association through its competitions arm, the World Coffee Championships (older sources credit World Coffee Events, the body that operated the championships before the 2017 merger — see that note for why the two names describe the same competition).

How it works

There is a preliminary round and a final round, and both turn on the same demand: make matching pairs, and make them identical.¹

The preliminary round has two parts:

• The Art Bar — an up-close exhibition where competitors are allowed to etch and decorate (use tools and toppings, not just a free pour), and the standout pour is chosen by popular vote rather than by the judging panel.¹
• The main stage — competitors have eleven minutes to produce six beverages: two sets of matching free-pour lattes (poured entirely by tilting the pitcher, no tools) and two matching designer-pattern lattes (etched and decorated).¹

In the final round, the top six do the same shape of performance — two matching sets of free-pour patterns and two matching designer patterns — and the highest-scoring finalist is World Latte Art Champion.¹

Judges score on visual attributes, creativity, how identical the patterns are within each matching pair, the contrast in the patterns, and overall performance.¹ “Identical” is the pressure that makes this hard: it is not enough to pour one beautiful cup, you have to pour the same beautiful cup twice.

Entry is bottom-up, like all seven titles: you win your national latte art championship first, and that seat is your way onto the world stage.

Recent champions

	Year	Champion	Represents	Host city
1	2026	Bala (Lin Shao-hsing)	Chinese Taipei	San Diego, 10–12 Apr
2	2025	Chen Zhuohao	China	Geneva, 28 Jun
3	2024	Yi-Chen Xie	Taiwan	Copenhagen, 27 Jun

2026 — San Diego. Bala won the 2026 World Latte Art Championship, held 10–12 April 2026 at World of Coffee San Diego.¹² The organisers list him as “representing the competition body of Chinese Taipei.”¹ Secondary reporting gives his full name as Lin Shao-hsing and the full final six, with scores:³²

1. Bala (Lin Shao-hsing) — Chinese Taipei — 531³
2. Jacky Chang (Afloat Coffee Roaster) — Malaysia — 515³
3. Zking (Zhang Yuanyi) (Shanghai NiuNiu Coffee) — China — 510³
4. Bank Sarawut (CP Miji) — Thailand — 494³
5. Jay Kim (Coffee Monster Academy) — South Korea — 487³
6. Tatsuya Ishibashi (Connect Coffee) — Japan — 447³

To verify

Everything below the champion’s name for 2026. The official page names Bala as champion and nothing else — no scores, no runners-up, no Art Bar winner.¹ The full ranking, the scores, Bala’s real name, and the reporting that this was his third WLAC appearance (after placing third in 2022 and 2023) all come from a secondary results aggregator and a coffee blog, not from the organisers.³² The same blog describes his winning free-pours as a raccoon, a giraffe and a red panda, and says the Art Bar / People’s Choice award went to Eduardo Olímpio of Brazil, who won a trip to World of Coffee Panama in October 2026.² Treat all of it as well-sourced colour, not official record. The 2022–2023 placings in particular could not be confirmed against any WCC page.

To verify

How Taiwan is named. The organisers list Bala under “Chinese Taipei,”¹ while secondary sources — and this wiki’s World Barista Championship table for Berg Wu (2016) — use “Taiwan,” and the 2024 champion below is likewise reported as Taiwanese.² The World Coffee Championships note flags the same discrepancy: something changed in how competitors from Taiwan are designated, but what, when and why is not established here.

2025 — Geneva. Chen Zhuohao, representing China, won the 2025 championship, announced 28 June 2025 in Geneva.⁴ The official final ranking:⁴

1. Chen Zhuohao — China
2. Ryusei Nozawa — Japan
3. Elly (Jiyu Lee) — South Korea
4. JiaMin — Singapore
5. Bank Sarawut — Thailand
6. Ming Wan — Australia

A results aggregator gives final-round scores of 539 for Chen and 518 for Nozawa; those numbers are secondary and are not on the official announcement.⁵

2024 — Copenhagen. A coffee news outlet reports Yi-Chen Xie of Taiwan as the 2024 champion, crowned 27 June 2024 at World of Coffee Copenhagen, ahead of Manuela Fensore (Italy), Guoqiang Liu (China), Dario Pieber (Switzerland), Sarawut Manngan (Thailand) and Elly / Jiyu Lee (South Korea).⁶⁷

To verify

The 2024 result. No official WCC announcement for 2024 was consulted for this note; the champion and podium come from a news outlet and a results aggregator, and the scores (Xie 535, Fensore 528, and so on) are the aggregator’s alone.⁶⁷ The podium is consistent across the two, but confirm against the organisers’ own rankings before quoting a number.

The earlier European editions

Latte art was a world title well before 2024 — the championship ran for years under the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE) at its Nordic World of Coffee events, before the SCAA–SCAE merger of 2017 put all the championships under the unified Specialty Coffee Association.⁸

To verify

The Gothenburg edition and the competition’s full history. A single news outlet reports that Caleb Cha of Cafenatics (Melbourne) won the World Latte Art Championship in Gothenburg, at an SCAE Nordic World of Coffee event, ahead of Xuechao Wang (China) and Kyeong-woo Jung (South Korea).⁸ The year is not stated in that source — context points to roughly 2015, but that is an inference, not a fact. No primary source consulted gives the championship’s founding year, its first champion, or a complete year-by-year winners list. Those would need cross-checking against the organisers’ own past rankings.

No coffees, no scores, no prices — and that’s the point

A reader arriving from Best of Panama or Cup of Excellence will look for the coffees the competitors used, their cupping scores, their Geisha provenance, their auction prices. None of that is published for this competition, and none should be invented.¹

That is not an oversight — it is the nature of the event, exactly as with the World Cup Tasters Championship. The green-coffee auctions judge a lot and publish a price. This championship judges a performance and publishes a name; the espresso under the foam is a canvas, not a product for sale, so there is no lot, no score, no buyer and no per-kilo figure attached to it. The judging scoresheet never scores the coffee’s flavour at all — only the picture on top of it.¹ Any statement like “the 2025 champion poured over a washed Geisha scoring 90” would be pure fabrication.

Why it matters

A championship result is a public verdict, and a public verdict reprices things — the premiumisation engine this wiki keeps running into. On the barista and brewers side you can watch a title lift a specific coffee.

Latte art works more like the Cup Tasters title: it sells no branded lot, because the coffee is incidental. What it reprices is the barista’s craft — a skill that is intensely visual and travels perfectly on social media, where a matched pair of poured swans reads instantly in a way a cupping score never will. It is the most photogenic of the seven titles, and in 2026 five of the seven left Europe and North America entirely; the latte art crown has sat in Chinese Taipei, China and Taiwan across its three most recent editions, riding the same eastward current the whole circuit is on.

Champion history

	Year	Champion	Country	Company	Score	Host city
1	2026	Bala	Taiwan	UCC Taiwan	531	San Diego, CA, USA
2	2025	Chen Zhuohao	China	Moment Coffee Academy	539	Geneva, Switzerland
3	2024	Yi-Chen Xie	Taiwan	啡Style cafe & 咖啡教學	535	Copenhagen, Denmark
4	2023	LiangFan	China	Woow Barista Academy	562	Athens, Greece
5	2022	Carmen Clemente	Italy	World Latte Art & Coffee Center	463	Milan, Italy
6	2019	Manuela Fensore	Italy	Barlady Café Academy	449	Berlin, Germany
7	2018	Irvine Quek Siew Lhek	Malaysia	103 coffee workshop	470	Belo Horizonte, Brazil
8	2017	Arnon Thitiprasert	Thailand	RISTR8TO	464.5	Budapest, Hungary
9	2016	Umpaul	South Korea	Independent	374	Dublin, Ireland
10	2015	Caleb Cha	Australia	Cafenatics	373.5	Gothenburg, Sweden
11	2014	Christian Ullrich	Germany	Barista Christian Ullrich	397.5	Rimini, Italy
12	2013	Hisako Yoshikawa	Japan	—	427	Nice, France
13	2012	Victoria Kashirtseva	Russia	—	392	Vienna, Austria
14	2011	Chris Loukakis	Greece	Taf	352.5	Maastricht, Netherlands
15	2010	Haruna Murayama	Japan	—	24	London, United Kingdom
16	2009	Peter Hernou	Belgium	—	—	Cologne, Germany
17	2008	Con Haralambopoulos	Australia	—	46	Copenhagen, Denmark
18	2007	Jack Hanna	Australia	—	40	Tokyo, Japan
19	2006	Scott Callaghan	Australia	—	205	Bern, Switzerland
20	2005	Johan Carlström	Sweden	—	—	Seattle, USA

Results archive (every edition)

Final-round placings for every World Latte Art Championship edition on record — 20 editions, 2005–2026. Earlier rounds (the full field, 776 rows in total) are kept as data in data/competitions/wcc/wlac.json.

2026 — San Diego, CA, USA

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Bala	Taiwan	UCC Taiwan	531
2	2	Jacky Chang	Malaysia	Afloat Coffee Roaster	515
3	3	Zking (Zhang Yuanyi)	China	ShangHai NiuNiu Coffee	510
4	4	Bank Sarawut	Thailand	CP Miji Thailand	494
5	5	Jay Kim	South Korea	Coffee Monster Academy	487
6	6	Tatsuya Ishibashi	Japan	Connect Coffee	447

Earlier rounds: Round One (33).

2025 — Geneva, Switzerland

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Chen Zhuohao	China	Moment Coffee Academy	539
2	2	Ryusei Nozawa	Japan	Sarutahiko Coffee	518
3	3	Elly(JIYU LEE)	South Korea	ONEWAY	482
4	4	JiaMin	Singapore	The Populus Cafe	451
5	5	Bank Sarawut	Thailand	CP-Meiji Thailand	443
6	6	Ming Wan	Australia	Ona Coffee	436

Earlier rounds: Semi-Finals (12), Round One (35).

2024 — Copenhagen, Denmark

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Yi-Chen Xie	Taiwan	啡Style cafe & 咖啡教學	535
2	2	Manuela Fensore	Italy	World Latte Art & Coffee Center	528
3	3	Guoqiang Liu	China	Hexagon Coffee Trading Ltd., Co	513
4	4	Dario Pieber	Switzerland	Rent a Barista GmbHН	503
5	5	Sarawut Manngan	Thailand	CP-Meiji.co.ltd	490
6	6	Elly(JIYU LEE)	South Korea	ONEWAY Training Center	475

Earlier rounds: Semi-Finals (12), Round One (36).

2023 — Athens, Greece

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	LiangFan	China	Woow Barista Academy	562
2	2	Lu Daoqiang	China	Independent	544
3	3	Bala-Shao Sing Lin	Taiwan	UCC Taiwan	523.5
4	4	Ryan Liew	Malaysia	103 Coffee	505
5	5	Pachara Tubtimchai	Thailand	CP - Meji Thailand	479
6	6	Jervis Tan	Singapore	Oaks Coffee Co.	472

Earlier rounds: Semi-Finals (12), Round One (37).

2022 — Milan, Italy

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Carmen Clemente	Italy	World Latte Art & Coffee Center	463
2	2	Rora	South Korea	RO&UM	462.5
3	3	Shao-Sing Lin	Taiwan	UCC Taiwan	436.5
4	4	Nicky Voon Pei Xin	Malaysia	103 Coffee Workshop	422
5	5	Victor Vu	Australia	ONA Coffee	418
6	6	Christos Douvas	Greece	The Underdog	415.5

Earlier rounds: Semi-Finals (12), Round One (27).

2019 — Berlin, Germany

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Manuela Fensore	Italy	Barlady Café Academy	449
2	2	Hao-Yuan Chen	Taiwan	Independent	416
3	3	Liu Guoqiang	China	Sanshierli Academy	413.5
4	4	Oneway Dash	South Korea	Oneway	404
5	5	Hiroki Ito	Japan	Sarutahiko Coffee	397.5
6	6	Peter Chan	Hong Kong	Coco Espresso	392

Earlier rounds: Semi-Finals (12), Round One (41).

2018 — Belo Horizonte, Brazil

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Irvine Quek Siew Lhek	Malaysia	103 coffee workshop	470
2	2	Michalis Karagiannis	Greece	Manor House	435
3	3	Liang Fan	China	Fan Coffee Lab	409
4	4	Shinsaku Fukayama	Australia	St. Ali	408
5	5	Agnieszka Rojewska	Poland	Independent	396
6	6	Wonjae Choi	South Korea	Café ONEWAY	386

Earlier rounds: Semi-Finals (12), Round One (38).

2017 — Budapest, Hungary

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Arnon Thitiprasert	Thailand	RISTR8TO	464.5
2	2	Michalis Karagiannis	Greece	Manor House	438
3	3	Agnieszka Rojewska	Poland	Rojes	415
4	4	Jervis Tan	Singapore	Kinsmen Coffee	404.5
5	5	Tse Kwun Kit	Hong Kong	Accro Coffee	381.5
6	6	Matteo Beluffi	Italy	Independent	342

Earlier rounds: Semi-Finals (12), Preliminary (39).

2016 — Dublin, Ireland

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Umpaul	South Korea	Independent	374
2	2	Qi Li	China	Mellower Coffee	348
3	3	Minako Yoshizumi	Japan	Dean & Deluca Japan	327.5
4	4	Dhan Tamang	United Kingdom	Caracoli	326.5
5	5	Agnieszka Rojewska	Poland	Brisman Kawowy Bar	320.5
6	6	Ben Morrow	Australia	St ali Family and Sensory lab group	285

Earlier rounds: Preliminary (36).

2015 — Gothenburg, Sweden

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Caleb Cha	Australia	Cafenatics	373.5
2	2	Xuechao Wang	China	Jiangbeileran coffee	365.5
3	3	Kyeong-Woo Jung	South Korea	Corea Coffee Belt	339.5
4	4	Mao Nagura	Japan	Fonz	318
5	5	Arnon Thitiprasert	Thailand	Ristr8tto	267.5
6	6	Hong-Sheng Liao	Taiwan	Café Moment	265

Earlier rounds: Round One (36).

2014 — Rimini, Italy

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Christian Ullrich	Germany	Barista Christian Ullrich	397.5
2	2	Chiara Bergonzi	Italy	Chiara Bergonzi	388.5
3	3	Edit Juhasz	Hungary	Independent	370
4	4	Rie Moustakas	Australia	Gloria Jean’s Coffees	363.5
5	5	Seivijus Matiejunas	Ireland	Bewleys	359.5
6	6	Ryan Tan	Singapore	Strangers’ Reunion	335

Earlier rounds: Round One (31).

2013 — Nice, France

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Hisako Yoshikawa	Japan	—	427
2	2	KyeongWoo Jung	South Korea	—	424.5
3	3	Miguel Lamora	Spain	—	397.5
4	4	Leszek Jedrasik	Poland	—	394.5
5	5	Esther Masdaam	Netherlands	—	392.5
6	6	Sam Low	New Zealand	—	374.5

Earlier rounds: Round One (30).

2012 — Vienna, Austria

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Victoria Kashirtseva	Russia	—	392
2	2	Graciele Rodrigues	Brazil	—	389.5
3	3	Luzia Taschler	Germany	—	371.5
4	4	Leszek Jedrasik	Poland	—	370
5	5	Seivijus Matiejunas	Lithuania	—	368.5
6	6	Ban-Suk Lee	South Korea	—	353

Earlier rounds: Round One (32).

2011 — Maastricht, Netherlands

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Chris Loukakis	Greece	Taf	352.5
2	2	Aurora Aleli Moreno Labastida	Mexico	Independent	331
3	3	Ryan Tan	Singapore	Papa Palheta	291
4	4	Jin-Kyu, Kim	South Korea	GKMT	318.5
5	5	Rashid Khanov	Russia	Coffeemania	329.5
6	6	Arnon Thitiprasert	Thailand	Thailand Coffee & Tea Assoc	290
7	7	Seivijus Matiejunas	Lithuania	Bewleys	276.5
8	8	Matthias Hoppenworth	Germany	Hoppenworth & Ploch	182

Earlier rounds: Preliminary (9).

2010 — London, United Kingdom

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Haruna Murayama	Japan	—	24
2	2	William Priestley	Australia	—	22
3	3	Sebastian Ryberg	Sweden	—	22
4	4	Sebastian Lösch	Germany	—	20
5	5	Sineenart Anuwatanaphorn	Thailand	—	19
6	6	Claudie Donderwinkel	Netherlands	—	18.5

Earlier rounds: Semi-Finals (33).

2009 — Cologne, Germany

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Peter Hernou	Belgium	—	—
2	2	Periklis Karavas	Greece	—	—
3	3	Erin Sampson	Australia	—	—
4	4	Kenji Kushihama	Japan	—	—
5	5	Andrea Antonelli	Italy	—	—
6	6	John Gordon	United Kingdom	—	—

Earlier rounds: Semi-Finals (31).

2008 — Copenhagen, Denmark

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Con Haralambopoulos	Australia	—	46
2	2	Kira Malchenko	Russia	—	45.5
3	3	Akihiro Okada	Japan	—	44
4	4	Carl Sara	New Zealand	—	44
5	5	Georg Branny	Austria	—	41
6	6	Jae Hyuek An	South Korea	—	40

Earlier rounds: Round One (25).

2007 — Tokyo, Japan

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Jack Hanna	Australia	—	40
2	2	Søren Stiller Markussen	Denmark	—	38
3	3	Alice Shchichko	Russia	—	37
4	4	Jan-Fredrik Winter	Iceland	—	37
5	5	Emma Andersson	Sweden	—	35
6	6	Stefanos Domatiotis	Greece	—	34
7	7	Rose van Asten	Netherland	—	32
8	8	Peter Hernou	Belgium	—	32
9	9	Christopher Rapp	Germany	—	30
10	10	Vadim Kõllomets	Estonia	—	28
11	11	Petra Veselá	Czech Rep	—	26
12	12	Roberts Luksa	Latvia	—	26
13	13	Daniel Heiniger	Switzerland	—	23
14	14	Haakon Kinn	Norway	—	22
15	15	Donata Stosyk	Poland	—	21
16	16	James Hoffman	United Kingdom	—	21
17	17	Flynn Niamh	Ireland	—	17
18	18	Giorgio Panato	Italy	—	13
19	19	Georg Branny	Austria	—	0

2006 — Bern, Switzerland

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Scott Callaghan	Australia	—	205
2	2	Jiwook Choi	South Korea	—	204.5
3	3	Costas Pliatsikas	Sweden	—	203.5
4	4	Eric Wolf	Germany	—	202.5
5	5	James Hoffmann	United Kingdom	—	202
6	6	Jenny Renate Dungthang	Norway	—	186.5
7	7	David Khachatryan	Russia	—	185.5
8	8	Joseph Khoury	Lebanon	—	184
9	9	Jaanus Savisto	Estonia	—	18.05
10	10	Donata Stosyk	Poland	—	179.5
11	11	Arthur Wynne	Ireland	—	174.5
12	12	Lindsay Parker	Canada	—	156
13	13	Marta Sif Olafsdottir	Iceland	—	153
14	14	Carl Sara	New Zealand	—	135.5
15	15	Paul Fesatidis	Greece	—	124
16	16	Michel Buis	Netherlands	—	78.5
17	17	Mariano Semino	Italy	—	67.5

2005 — Seattle, USA

	Place	Competitor	Country	Company	Score
1	1	Johan Carlström	Sweden	—	—
2	2	Troels Poulsen	Denmark	—	—
3	3	Stephen Morrissey	Ireland	—	—

Source conflicts

To verify

The hand-written table on this page and the imported archive disagree on 5 field(s). Neither is assumed correct — check them against the official World Coffee Events record and fix whichever is wrong at its source.

	Year	Field	This page says	The archive says
1	2024	host city	Copenhagen, 27 Jun	Copenhagen, Denmark
2	2025	host city	Geneva, 28 Jun	Geneva, Switzerland
3	2026	country	Chinese Taipei	Taiwan
4	2026	host city	San Diego, 10–12 Apr	San Diego, CA, USA
5	2026	name	Bala (Lin Shao-hsing)	Bala

Related

• World Coffee Championships — the seven-title circuit this one belongs to
• World Barista Championship — the sibling that also makes milk drinks, but scores them on taste, not the pattern
• World Brewers Cup · World Cup Tasters Championship — the other best-documented siblings on this wiki
• World Coffee Events · Specialty Coffee Association — who runs it, before and after the 2017 merger
• Latte art — the craft the championship is built on
• Cupping — how the coffee itself gets scored, which this competition pointedly does not do
• Best of Panama · Cup of Excellence — the green-coffee equivalents, judged on lots rather than people
• Premiumisation · China coffee market · Japan coffee market — why a competition result moves money
• Geisha — the variety that keeps turning up on the competition stage

Official links

• Official site — World Latte Art Championship (World Coffee Championships)
• Official — World Coffee Championships past rankings
• Official — World Coffee Championships news

Footnotes

1. World Coffee Championships — World Latte Art Championship (official) ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

2. Roastopedia — 2026 World Latte Art Championship, San Diego: Results & Winners ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

3. World Latte Art Championship 2026 — Results & Rankings ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

4. World Coffee Championships — Announcing the 2025 World Latte Art Champion: Chen Zhuohao (official) ↩ ↩²

5. World Latte Art Championship 2025 — Results & Rankings ↩

6. Comunicaffe — All the winners of the World Coffee Championships at WoC Copenhagen ↩ ↩²

7. World Latte Art Championship 2024 — Results & Rankings ↩ ↩²

8. Comunicaffe — Australian champion Caleb Cha wins World Latte Art Championship in Gothenburg ↩ ↩²