What a weekend! Congratulations to all the competitors and their teams for an incredible effort at the 2025 National Coffee Competitions. And a huge well done to the SCASA Board of Directors, the Sponsors and the amazing volunteers, both the Judges and the Stage Team who made this event such a success!
Let's jump right in to what went down on Finals Day, 1 June 2025 at the Specialty Coffee Expo in Fourways Mall...
The first Champion of the day was decided when Retha van Rhijn scored an impressive 8 out of 8 cups in the last round of the Finals.
The standard was incredibly tough with Chris Rootman brewing the WCE supplied recipes with the Seam Coffee's which led to a high score of only 4 out of 8 cups correct before the last round commenced. And then the last round blew everyone away!
Brandon Madanha of Father Coffee was a wildcard entry into the competition and clocked an impressive 6 out of 8. An amazing effort for a first time competitor!
But no one could beat the 2023 SA Champion this time and Retha (Plato Coffee) has booked her ticket to compete at the World Cup Tasters Championship in Geneva at the World of Coffee.
6th Ishan Natalie - Starbucks
5th Thabang Maluleka - Wiesenhof
4th Shannon Black - Plato Coffee
3rd Andre Blignaut - Independent
2nd Brandon Madanha - Father Coffee
CHAMP: Retha van Rhijn - Plato Coffee
The Latte Art competition was hard fought, with Seattle Coffee Co boasting an impressive 3 competitors in the Top 6. The support that this team has for each other is heartwarming to say the least!
All eyes were on Jeff Stopforth, the defending Champion, and in the end, despite going 20+ seconds over in the Final Round, the complexity of his pours was enough to confirm his status as SA Latte Art Champion and he will also head to Geneva at the end of the month. This is the fifth consecutive title that Jeff has won, wow! A record that will not soon be broken!
6th Thamsanqa Gebuza - Seattle Coffee Co
5th Jackson Mukhovi - Seattle Coffee Co
4th Thato May - Seattle Coffee Co
3rd Ndumiso Ngcobo - Jonsson Workwear
2nd Vincent Majola - Avanti Coffee
CHAMP: Jeff Stopforth - TriBeCa
Head Judge, Teija Lublinkhof, who has been Head Judge at World Barista Championship level, said this has group of competitors has shown the highest level of competition seen in all her years of judging here! And the Top 6 really showed off on Finals Day. The level of coffees presented on stage was truly world class and good to see everyone getting creative with their milk combinations (freeze distillation and combining with alt m*ilks for texture and sweetness) and keeping their signature beverages simple, but delicious. Everyone did themselves and their businesses proud, but in the end, there can only be one and this year belonged to Stevo Kühn, who will take to the World Barista Championship stage for the 3rd time in October in Milan at HOST.
6th Munashe Gumbo - Father Coffee
5th Hee Ye Kim - Cedar Coffee Roasters
4th Luhle Mnyandu - Bluebird Coffee Roastery
3rd Christiaan Jacobs - Ciro Coffee
2nd Fanie Botes - Bluebird Coffee Roastery
CHAMP: Stevo Kühn - Independent/Plato Coffee
Read below for some insights into their sets. You can also soon view the full sets online, link to be shared shortly.
6th Place: Munashe Gumbo - Father Coffee
Munashe 'Uncle Nash' Gumbo was absolutely thrilled to make it into the Top 6 this year and he represented his Father Coffee Team and the producer Diego Samuel Bermudez in style on stage.
Diego originally studied as a biochemist so his coffees are processed with extreme care and innovative techniques, like this Geisha that underwent an incredibly unique and involved processing method called Antimaceration. The very short version is that the coffee cherries spend 60 DAYS in a vacuum chamber with a vacuum pump pulling off any oxygen or gas constantly. This creates negative pressure in the chamber. The result is the liquid is drawn off the cherry and pools in the trays causing the seeds to bath in their own fruit juice for 2 months. Creating a very intense fruit notes! The coffee also has some unusual characteristics you wouldn’t normally find in a geisha – the fruit and florals are there, but also big chocolate (apparently a result of the lactobacillus strain used), spice and a very obvious cola note. (We got the low down from Chad Goddard on some of Diego's crazy methods. Coming soon!)
These were his flavour notes across his three courses:
His espresso had notes of guava, marmalade and (his favourite) peaches, with a passion fruit finish. His milk beverage sounded INSANE with notes of caramelised pineapple, toasted coconut, Cadbury Top Deck and a Caramello Bear finish. And his signature beverage was vanilla, cherry and cola with the surprising and unusual finish of cinnamon!
We loved his quirky touches, like using an old-school 1.5 litre glass Coca Cola bottle to pour his signature Cola Fizz. And we really loved the support he got from his team. Well done Nash, we look forward to seeing you back on stage in future!
5th Place: Hee Ye Kim - Cedar Coffee Roasters
Hee Ye was so surprised to make it into the Final Round after going 50 seconds over time in the Prelims, but her earnest passion, well thought out set and clean coffee impressed the judges!
Hee Ye’s set was based around three pillars, Environment, Time and People. She used an eye-catching colour mixing set up to illustrate her theme in her final course, the signature beverage, showing how the various elements combined to create new wonderful colours together!
She was determined to come to the competition with an African coffee and more specifically, one that was a washed process. This translated to a beautiful Kenyan coffee from the Kathande Coffee Factory. Her espresso shone with flavours of mangoes, fresh orange and yellow nectarine and her milk beverage was a mouthful of butterscotch, toffee yogurt and a short biscuit finish. YUM.
Congratulations on making it to the Top 6 in your first National Champs, what an achievement! And well done to the shortest team in coffee, Cedar Coffee Roasters, great to see the passion for competition is alive and well!
4th Place: Luhle Mnyandu - Bluebird Coffee Roastery
Another first time Top 6 competitor after narrowly missing out in 2024, Luhle was determined to take this opportunity with both hands. His natural stage presence is super engaging and he drew the judges in, showcasing not one but two exceptional coffees on stage. A Yellow Bourbon from highly sought after producer, Finca La Negrita in Colombia and a Geisha Red Honey Process from Volcan Azul in Costa Rica. This represented an old relationship and a new relationship, with Volcan Azul being one of the coffees that inspired Luhle to get into specialty coffee and the Finca La Negrita showing the new relationships they are building on all the time.
Luhle was one of two competitors (the other being the eventual Champ, Stevo) to using the layering technique, which is in simple terms, grinding two different coffees into the portafilter. He switched the order of layering for different courses resulting in different flavours being highlighted for his espresso and milk courses.
For espresso he achieved flavours of clementine and ruby grapefruit and with the reverse and in addition to a milk with a Lactose-free component for higher sweetness, the result was strawberry milkshake, milk chocolate and salted caramel. Holy moly! His lush signature beverage had notes of orange and vanilla.
This young talent makes us so excited for the future of competition in South Africa.
3rd Place: Christiaan Jacobs - Ciro Beverage Solutions
Christiaan has got a taste for competition since winning the Lavazza Barista Challenge in 2023 and placing 3rd at the global level! He also did not expect to make it to the Top 6 after being well over time in the prelims, but his perfomance and coffee got enough points to get him through regardless!
His Las Flores Chiroso Caturra by brothers Jhoan & Diego Verghara in Colombia underwent intensive processing, taking the cherries and putting them through 3x stages Aerobic and 2 Stages Anaerobic resulting in a pretty wild coffee!
He served his milk course first which used the very interesting added element of rice milk for sweetness, not one we have personally seen on stage before. And the combination created a drink with flavours of mixed berry yoghurt and Black Forest cake!
The ratio of his espressos was a point of interest and great to see competitors play around with this. He used a 23g in, 60g out ratio which is quite a lot more volume than usual but that was where the espresso shone, with flavours of fermented dark cherry, peach and grapefruit! Oh la la!
His signature beverage wowed with notes of granadilla, coffee blossom with a papaya finish.
Christiaan showed a level of professionalism and humility well beyond his 27 years, he will be one to watch in the future!
2nd Place: Fanie Botes - Bluebird Coffee Roastery
A man on a mission! Fanie is the epitome of a competitor and he truly gave it his all again this year. Runner up is an extremely tough position to find yourself in two years in a row, but he handled it with grace and dignity, we are so proud of this force in coffee!
Fanie built his set around the concept of temperature’s impact on coffee at the various stages of coffee. He was working with a phenomenal coffee from famed Panamanian producer, Kai Janson, from Janson Estate Coffee. The geisha was specially flown in for this competition.
Fanie is an incredible performer and after his prelim set where he raced through his set, he was the ultimate professional and pulled it back to the perfect speed, peaking just in time for Finals Day.
His milk beverage boasted notes of strawberry yoghurt, salted caramel and a melted ice cream texture. His espresso had the aroma of orange blossom and apricot, and red plum, ruby grapefruit and orange blossom to taste. His signature beverage produced new flavour notes of guava, blood orange and Turkish delight. Please can we have it right now!!!
Don't take your eye off this contender!
CHAMPION: Stevo Kühn - Independent Consultant/Plato Coffee
Last year, Stevo placed 4th at Nationals and he will be the first to tell you that he was gutted with that result. He didn't let it get him down and was determined to do justice to his experience with the Liberica species, which he brought back to stage this year in partnership with ONA Coffee.
The concept of Stevo's set was built around the idea that at this point in high coffee prices around the world, where do we go from here? He believes the future will be through adding value through processing. He used two coffees to showcase this.
HIs primary coffee was an Adrian Lasso Honey Processed Sidra variety from Colombia, the Lasso's are well-renowned for producing extremely tasty coffees.
His attention to detail showed his experience, with simple but effective things like stirring the judges' espressos to ensure they had the experience he designed, and they tasted the desired raspberry, clementine, blood orange and red grape sweetness in the cup.
Then came the milk course. In 2023 MY LIBERICA by Jason Liu and Hugh Kelly from ONA Coffee teamed up to debut Liberica coffee at the World Barista Championship, securing third place with the unique Liberica 50/50 blend. Stevo first layered 1.8g (seems small right?!) of liberica in the portafilter before the Sidra, and although a small amount it had a big impact! The flavour notes produced were Neapolitan ice cream, malt and melted chocolate ice cream. I mean!
His signature beverage created a treat for the judges with flavours of Turkish delight, orange and toffee.
The word to describe his initial reaction to winning has to be: RELIEF. It is difficult to come back as a past Champion and this felt like vindication for him after his disappoint last year. Well done Stevo! Well deserved!
Now it's time for the coffee community to rally behind our Champions to give them the best possible chance of success on the World stage.
Thank you once again to the BoD, MC's, volunteers and all the incredible Judges who gave their time for such an important moment in these coffee professionals lives.
Thank you to these legend volunteers: Nello, Mandy, Thato and Tachooman, as well as those not pictured, Cherilee, Luhandre and Belinda
Sponsors
Woodlands Dairy - https://www.woodlandsdairy.co.za/
TriBeCa - https://tribeca.co.za/
La Marzocco South Africa - https://lamarzoccosa.co.za/
Fiorenzato by Electrical Industries - https://eionline.co.za/
Thermoplan by Morrico - https://www.morrico.co.za/thermoplan/
Seam. - https://seam.co.za/
Fargo Green Coffee Merchants - https://www.instagram.com/fargogreencoffee/
MilkLab - https://www.instagram.com/milklabsouthafrica/?hl=en
Equipment Cafe - https://equipmentcafe.co.za/
Caffenu - https://caffenu.com/
Bluewater - https://www.bluewatergroup.com/en-us/
The Coffee Magazine - https://magazine.coffee/
Ciro Full Service Beverage Co. - https://www.ciro.co.za/
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