On April 12, Bala from Taiwan won the 2026 Latte Art World Championship. This story has been covered extensively, including here on Sprudge. However, now all mentions of Taiwan in connection with Bali’s historic victory have been removed and replaced from the official World Coffee Championship website, which today credits Bali’s victory to Chinese Taipei.
This distinction is fraught. The Republic of China, better known as Taiwan, has long claimed sovereignty, while the People’s Republic of China claims ownership of the island nation. The term “Chinese Taipei” is often used during international competitions such as the Olympic Games to refer to Taiwan. In fact, the name allows Taiwan to participate in international competitions separately from China without offending the PRC, whose “policy is to maintain [Taiwan] isolated on the world stage and does not agree with any utilize of the word “Taiwan” as an official title to prevent Taiwan from gaining international recognition for an “independent statehood” separate from the PRC.”
Historically, the World Coffee Championship used the term “Taiwan”, which was generally preferred by competitors and competition Taiwan Coffee Association. Utilize of name at WCC events dating back to at least 2007when Taiwan was first represented by Van Lin in the World Barista Championship. Sprudge has a record of being used in 2010, which was the first year we covered the championship. In 2016, Berg Wu won the World Barista Championship representing Taiwan.
According to Taipei timesOn April 28, the WCC website was changed to the Chinese Taipei website. And indeed Chinese Taipei has it now replaced all mentions of Taiwanincluding image deletion showing Bala standing on the WCC stage with a screen behind him and noting that he was representing Taiwan (below). No historical ranking information for any of the seven World Coffee Championship events is no longer available on the WCC website; links to previous rankings are still on the website, but no longer lead to (uneditable) PDF files containing the rankings, competitor names and countries represented. PDF files are still available via the most recent snapshot of your site in the Internet Archivetaken on April 17 this year.
WCC also changed the names of its YouTube channel. Bali procedures for both 2026 AND 2023 (which took place in Taipei) now lists Chinese Taipei instead of Taiwan, although the audio and video graphics still utilize Taiwan.
Following this change, the Taiwan Coffee Association issued the following statement: :
The Association has been fighting to maintain the representative name TAIWAN for 19 years, the name event has been discussed many times for 19 years and after several intense struggles over the years, we have worked challenging to maintain TAIWAN to the present. This happened again this year and we were surprised, but we kept fighting and communicating, which ultimately proved fruitless. For now, we are still working on it, we really won’t be willing to easily put TAIWAN, the representative name that has kept it so long.
After receiving the notification letter, in order to ensure that Taiwanese players going abroad can continue to participate fairly in the world competition, I hope that everyone can reasonably and continuously support our players, stand on the world stage, utilize their results and strength, so that everyone remembers that we come from “TAIWAN”.
The reaction from Taiwanese coffee specialists was one of shock and disappointment. “It was really hard to observe,” says Freda Yuan, a renowned international coffee expert. “Taiwan is a self-governing, democratic country with its own constitution, military, passport, presidential elections and government. As a country, we have long struggled for international recognition – and moments like this feel like a step backwards.”
Freda Yuan is a multiple World Cup Tasters finalist and the company’s coffee director Origin coffeeand author of the book. She continues:
“I competed and thrived in the space SCA created. It was a community built on inclusivity and passion, and I valued that very much. As a buyer, I do not discriminate based on country of origin because I firmly believe that producers should never be penalized for political power plays. We are all equal – people strive to grow and produce the best coffee they can. That’s why SCA’s sudden name change, with no explanation, hit so challenging. It’s an industry I’ve fallen in love with and deserves more.”
Most recently, 2016 world barista champion Berg Wu on Facebook he expressed his concern about the changesaying:
“Over the past few days, I have noticed that the World Coffee Events/World Coffee Championship has changed the name of the Taiwanese competitor’s representative team from Taiwan to Chinese Taipei… For the competitor and the Taiwanese coffee community, this is not just a straightforward wording change.” Wu continues: “For me, Taiwan is not just a name. It is an identity and a shared memory built by many competitors, trainers, judges, coffee shops, roasteries and all the consumers who have supported us along this journey. I understand that international organizations may face pressures and considerations related to different markets and regulations. However, I believe that any changes to how competitors are represented should be explained in a more crystal clear way and should include appropriate communication with competitors, competition authorities and directly involved coffee communities… “I am from Taiwan. I hope that future Taiwanese competitors will be recognized by the world as Taiwan.”
Sprudge Media Network reached out to the World Coffee Championship for comment, which was not available at press time. This story is developing.
