COMPETITION · WCRC · HOUSTON 2025
World Coffee Roasting Championship: Mikaël Portannier's Quiet, Decisive 2025 Win in Houston
Green grading, profile design, production roast, final cupping. No stage lights. Just a Loring, a probe, and the calmest week of anyone's competition year.
The World Coffee Roasting Championship (WCRC) is one of the SCA-sanctioned WCC events, but it's the one with no stagecraft. Competitors are evaluated across four phases over roughly four days:
- Green grading — sorting defects in raw, unroasted coffee against the SCA classification standard.
- Profile roasting — designing a roast curve for a single coffee, repeatable across batches.
- Production roast — executing a blend roast to spec on a commercial-class drum (in Houston 2025, on a Loring).
- Cupping evaluation — a sensory panel scoring the final roasted blends against expected flavour profiles.
2025: Mikaël Portannier, France — Texture Coffee
The 2025 WCRC was held at the Specialty Coffee Expo in Houston, Texas, in late April 2025. Mikaël Portannier, representing France and roasting for Texture Coffee (Paris), won the title.[1][2]
Top four: 1. Mikaël Portannier (France, Texture Coffee), 2. Ashton Huang (Taiwan, Rritrovare Coffee), 3. Naruepon Wuttipappinyo (Thailand, Factory Coffee), 4. Song Chundan (China).[3]
Why it matters
Roasting is the least telegenic and arguably most influential craft in specialty coffee — what your bag tastes like is, in the end, decided in the drum, not at the bar. The WCRC's existence (since 2013) has done quiet but huge work to professionalize roasting as a discipline, with formal grading, measurement, and international calibration. The 2025 win for a Parisian roaster also marks the steady continuation of French specialty's rise from boutique curiosity to world-class production craft.
References
- Comunicaffe International, "WCRC: Mikaël Portannier, representing France is the 2025 World Coffee Roasting Champion" (Apr 2025).
- Daily Coffee News, "Final Standings from the 2025 World Coffee Roasting Championship" (1 May 2025).
- Canada Coffee Championships, "World Coffee Roasting Championship 2025 — Results & Rankings."