Kay cheon z Dune Coffee Roasters In Santa, Barbara, California is the champion of the United States barista in 2025. This is his sixth year competing and the fourth performance in the USBC finals.
Cheon wins the best awards, was inevitable and everyone knew about it. At least everyone did not call Kay Cheon. Oh, so close to three times earlier, he could feel a greater curse than a guarantee of future success for the man himself. You could see it on his face in Rancho Cucamonga, California during the announcements of the winners in last year’s Barista Championships, where he took fourth place behind the 2024 Frank La champion. You could see disappointment and fire in the face of the stoic Kay Cheon. You can say how much it means to him.
Quickly forward to the finals on Sunday in Raleigh, but this time it is the name of Cheon, which was named, and you see it again on his face. First with a deep exhaust, then with a smile, and then drawing in the iconic Reg barber trophy.
The theme of Cheon’s routine this year were component blocks and the way coffee can connect with other components to create something bigger. Perhaps there is no more recognizable structural element in the world than Legos, from which the choice served as a visual element in this routine. Mata Lego Place, an inspired lego information card for judges, even giant pink LEGO as the focal point of his table. Because even a technician like Cheon may have some whim.
However, his coffee was a business. Cheon competed with two coffees this year. The first was the Ethiopian Landrace variety known as the ombligon, which was vaccinated with yeast and the thermally shocked producer Nestor Lasso from Finca El Diviso in Huli, Colombia (this is the same coffee Frank La, which used last year in its winning run). His second coffee was also vaccinated with yeast, this time Gesha Green End grown at 1900mml by Jamison Savage in Finca Deborah in a volcano in Panama. This coffee underwent initial natural processing before the second processing passed.
Like many other competitors this year, Cheon decided to lead his routine with a milk course. Older USBC fans can consider this surprising; A classic order in the Comp is an espresso-milk-sig drink, but it is all in Flux in today’s contemporary competitive scene. “I call this mixture of milk” great milk, “Ceon told judges. 60% of full cream dairy, 20% cashew milk and 20% pistachio milk, the mixture underwent the Roto-Vac process, in which the milk is vacuum sealed, and then rotated to 150 rpm to caramelizing sugars, which causes increased sweetness and cream. After adding Espressos to the ombhagon, pulled from very tiny from 20 g to 30 g, he created notes of raspberries, malt chocolate, marzipan and vanilla.
(Another great trend at this year’s dairy course was the return of ristretto shots to lend a hand the taste in additional fat content in contemporary competitive milk).
During his second course, Cheon got stuck with coffee coffee, this time adding jasmine nectar, chilly hibiscus tea and bergamot, vanilla and all distillation of spices. These elements then received quick shaking via the immersion blender before they were served at room temperature for up-to-date orange notes and apricots with orange flower.
For his last course – Espressos – Cheon Layers El Diviso with Finca Deborah in a 1: 1 ratio. And at this point we can simply, I don’t know if there is an exact proper word, but maybe you can recognize how completely the banana is that the experimentally processed Panama Gesha – coffee, which previously won the world barista champion routine, and as only half of coffee? It’s wild, right? This is where the competition caliber. Layered Espresso Cheon have cherry, orange and raspberry notes, with medium weight, juicy consistency and a long finish.
We are pleased to discuss the work of Kay Cheon as a barista competitor over the past decade, so I am sure that he calls Kay Cheon’s quintessence. It was not flashy or particularly emotional, and Cheon looked completely on control. Instead, we were treated for a sophisticated master class on technical efficiency. Cheon was exceeded and confident, the ease and economy of his movement, which have their own difficulties. However, based on all this, there are top -order barista skills. You do not have to look much further than minor corrections to the taste of connections, which he made from the semi -finals to the finals – a cherry note, which becomes a raspberry or orange, which presents the next day as mandarins – to see how it worked at Cheon level. That is why – and many others on the competition scene – as if it was only a matter of time before Kay Chen won the USBC.
And now he. Looking to the future at the World Barista Championships, Cheon considers himself an early favorite of the field, who will still be chosen from now until October. The Cheon skill set and the style of routine are in most types that plays well in WBC. Expect that he will fill a sheet of results in Milan. At the weekend we joked that Cheon was a coffee robot and a dictionary definition of precision, but this level of consistency and technical efficiency are fundamental for deep running. And now Baristabot5000 goes to Milan in Italy in October in the hope that he will return the world title of Barista Championship to America, where he has not been for over a decade. I was that I wouldn’t stand against him.
The resistance is in vain. Kay Cheon is inevitable.
