On Wednesday, the Specialty Coffee Association announced that a number of coffee competitions would not take place in Dubai. Today, World Coffee Events unveiled their new location in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

BY ASHLEY RODRIGUEZ

BARISTA MAGAZINE ONLINE

Photos courtesy of World Coffee Events

On Wednesday, the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) announced that it had agreed to pull a number of international coffee competitions, including the World Brewers Cup Championship and the the World Cup Tasters Championship, out of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. This decision came as a result of public outcry after World Coffee Events (WCE), an event-management organization owned by the SCA responsible for all international coffee competitions, released information about the initial site selection in September 2017 and the subsequent Deferred Candidacy Policy in November.

Today, WCR announced that the 2018 World Brewers Cup Championship and World Cup Tasters Championship will now be held during International Coffee Week in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, in November, joining the World Latte Art Championship and the World Coffee in Good Spirits Championship. The World Roasting Championship has also been moved, but there has yet to be an announcement on where it will be held.

This decision was reached through the work of volunteers from across the coffee community, including members of the ad-hoc committees on site selection and the Deferred Candidacy Policy, and the newly formed Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Task Force.

You can learn more about the SCA’s decision to relocate the competitions by reading our latest article, with quotes from SCA Executive Director Ric Rhinehart, but we encourage you to weigh in as well—we want to hear what the community thinks about these two decisions, and we’ll continue to report and investigate as more information comes through.

We’d also like to shine a light on the members of the coffee community who have used the time between the announcement of the Deferred Candidacy Policy and now to create their own coffee communities and ensure that folks across the world have a voice and a platform, including Queer Coffee Events (which has held events in Oakland and New York), I See You, Dallas Coffee Gxls, and others. If there’s an organization you’ve started or know of that has yet to be highlighted, please feel free to email ashley@baristamagazine.com.