Vietnam won the world coffee cupping championship

On May 9, Le Quang Cuong (Nicky) born in 1989, representing Vietnam, won the 2026 World Cup Tasters Championship (WCTC). This is also the first year Vietnam participates in this competition.

This year’s tournament takes place on May 7-9 at the Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Center (BITEC), Thailand. The event brings together 46 contestants from around the world to challenge their sensory skills at the highest level.

Quang Cuong was chosen to participate after winning the 2026 Vietnam Coffee Cupping Championship – held for the first time in Ho Chi Minh City in April.

In each round, contestants must race against time to find the distinct cup of coffee in 8 triangle groups (including two identical cups and one different cup) using the cupping method. The results prioritize the number of correctly distinguished cups of coffee, followed by the completion time. The winner will continue to the next round.

Cupping is the process of evaluating coffee beans through multiple senses. Candidates use their sense of smell to analyze dry and wet flavors to identify the characteristics of the sample.

Contestants perform the tasting technique by slurping vigorously to bring the coffee into maximum contact with the taste buds on the tongue and palate. Candidates also evaluate the body of the liquid in the oral cavity to find differences in density.

Quang Cuong’s ranking throughout the tournament was 3/46 (preliminary round); 6/16 (quarterfinals) and 2/8 (semifinals). In the final match, the Vietnamese representative found exactly 7/8 distinct cups in 3 minutes 35 seconds. The second ranked person found exactly 6/8 cups in 2 minutes and 34 seconds.

“Nicky went above and beyond, demonstrating outstanding speed, absolute accuracy, and the ability to master the sense of smell, taste, and concentration to win the most prestigious title,” the competition organizers praised the Vietnamese representative after the match.

Mr. Cuong said that the organizers have set up “traps” that are very difficult to predict. If you are not focused enough, you will easily make mistakes. In the 8 groups in the final, Mr. Cuong was confident that he correctly guessed the difference in group number 7 but in the end he was wrong. After the match, the Vietnamese representative said that psychological pressure and the competition environment made him make the wrong choice despite careful preparation.

Another specific difficulty for exam participants is the phenomenon of “olfactory saturation”.

Mr. Cuong said that each person’s durability in identifying flavors is different. If the skill is not carefully practiced, the candidate only needs to smell back and forth about 3 rounds, the scents will be neutralized, the sense of smell will fall into a state of disorder and no longer be able to recognize the difference.

According to Mr. Cuong, the contest results reflect the sensory skills of coffee experts. This is the root that determines the success of the entire industry. From the senses, people adjust the way of growing, processing, roasting and mixing. If the roots are not strong, product quality is certainly not enough to meet customer requirements.

“This result also has great significance for the Vietnamese coffee industry,” Mr. Cuong said. According to him, people in the international coffee industry often only know about Vietnam for its output and do not appreciate its quality. The world once considered Vietnam a “low-lying area” in terms of coffee enjoyment culture, even behind Thailand, Malaysia or Indonesia.

From this change of perspective, Mr. Cuong expects that international investors and traders will come to Vietnam more to buy high-quality green coffee beans, marking a turning point for Vietnamese specialty coffee on the world map.

World Cup Tasters Championship is an international tournament, first held in 2004, part of the World Coffee Championships tournament system. This is a system of annual, top-notch international coffee competitions, aiming to honor skills and passion in the global coffee industry.