2026 Hacea Roasting Championship Recap

The results of Hacea's 2026 Roasting Championship are in!

Thank you to everyone who participated in this year's Hacea Roasting Championship!  This year was a first for us in a few ways.  It was our first roasting championship to sell out.  Thank you for that!  These competitions are a huge undertaking for our team, and we are so happy to see that roasters find value in this event. Secondly, this was our first competition collaboration (with Swiss Water).  The Swiss Water team helped us immensely not just with creating the perfect decaffeinated coffee, but with providing roasting support, educational support, and even flying in from Canada to participate in the judging of entries.

This was the closest scoring competition that we have had to date and we even had to break out a final tie-breaker to determine 2nd and 3rd place. The caliber of entries this year was extremely high.  It was clear that roasters really put effort into dialing in their submissions.  Everyone should be very proud of what they submitted.  

Thank you to those who made this event possible!

We want to share a huge thank you to the entire team at Swiss Water for their collaboration and support of this event! This was certainly a joint effort that was almost a full year in the making.

Thank you to Chris and Velentin from Gasharu Coffee who's family oversee all operations at the Muhororo Washing Station in Rwanda! Each kilo used in this competition went to supporting the Rugori Program which directly benefits coffee growers with access to livestock and health care. This year Hacea will give more than $20,000 to the Rugori Program, all thanks to your support!

This is our second Roasting Championship using coffee from Muhororo. The range of profiles that can be unlocked within their coffees offer a fun and challenging opportunity for all roasters. We are absolutely honored to be working with them and the entire team that are dedicated to producing these coffees.

Thank you to Roast Magazine for supporting the prizes for our contestants.

Huge thanks to our judges!

We couldn't possibly put on a competition without the generosity of our incredibly skilled judging team.  These judges donate their time, energy, and taste buds to us for two whole days.  They represent some of the most skilled individuals in the coffee industry.  

The 2026 Hacea Roasting Championship Winners are...

The scores recorded for the entries ranged from a score of 90.00 to 75.20, out of 100.  The top 9 scores were separated by less than 2 points.  After all coffees were initially scored, the top 9 coffees were tasted against each other, scored again, and had the finals score averaged with their original score.  Second and third place originally had a tie in scores, at which point they were rebrewed for a tie breaking tasting.  All participants will be receiving the judges evaluation and comments sent to their email.  You can see all of the scores here. With every competition, our goal is that roasters finish being stronger and more confident in their roasting skills. 

Here are your 2026 Hacea Roasting Championship top scores:

Roasting these coffees

For more information on how to roast these coffees, check out our Roast Approach blogs, providing detailed roast curves and insights into how these coffees behaved in the roaster.  With each of the coffee competitions, Hacea's in-house roasting expert Emily submits her own entry to be judged blind with the competitors.  Emily's entry scored within the top 5 scores, and you can see all of the details of how she developed those roasts here in her Roast Approach write ups.  

Vince Mazzoni has kindly asked that we share his 3rd place-winning roast profiles from Roast.World:

Stay tuned....

The next Hacea Roasting Championship will be announced in the fall of 2026!  For this next competition, we're pulling out all the stops.  It will be bigger and feature collaborations with some of the biggest names in coffee roasting.  You won't want to miss it!  Be sure that you are signed up to receive Hacea's emails and follow Hacea Coffee Source on Instagram for all the latest updates!