Many specialty coffee shops, such as Proud Mary, Rosslyn, and ONA, to name a few, offer rare or high-end lots as part of their reserve menus. But there’s a steadily growing number of cafés that are building their branding around exclusively serving auction and competition coffees.

Most recently, Lohas Café opened in Bogotá, Colombia. The coffee shop offers a selection from notable local producers, including Néstor Lasso, Jhoan Vergara, and Jonatan Gasca, whose coffees are often a fixture in the World Coffee Championships.

Understandably, menu prices at “competition cafés” can reach well over US $20 for a cup of coffee, attracting a niche but steadily growing audience. Although they may not always cater to mainstream coffee drinkers, these coffee shops serve an essential purpose: to bring consumers closer to innovation and excellence.

I spoke to Christophe Servell at Terres de Café and Juan Pablo Campos at Lohas Beans to learn more about what it takes to run a successful competition café.

You may also like our article on how roasters can make high-end coffee stand out.

How competitions have influenced the coffee industry

Many consider events like the World Barista, Brewers Cup, and Coffee in Good Spirits Championships the pinnacle of excellence in specialty coffee. 

The trends seen on the competition stages – whether it’s a rediscovered” variety or the latest espresso gadget – have an impact on the broader coffee industry. Many roasters, baristas, and prosumers attempt to replicate the results of notable winning routines in professional and home settings, pushing competition trends into the specialty coffee mainstream.

Even beyond the context of the specialty coffee sector, events like the World Barista Championship have garnered attention. The Road to Milan docuseries – which follows Onyx Coffee Lab’s Andrea Allen training for the 2021 WBC – won the Best Series Award at the 2023 Oregon Documentary Film Festival. The docuseries was also selected for the 2023 New York Independent Film Festival.

The Road to Milan targets an audience outside of specialty coffee, a sign of the competition’s growing appeal to a wider range of people. News outlets such as Business Insider and USA Today have also spotlighted US Barista Champions Kyle Ramage and Sam Spillman, introducing specialty coffee and coffee competitions to a bigger audience.

Coffee giant Starbucks also hosted its first-ever Global Barista Championship in June 2025. Nobuki Shimode, a Starbucks store manager in Japan, was announced the winner. 

At the three-day competition, 12 Starbucks employees from around the world showcased their skills in latte art, storytelling, and customer service, competing for the chance to be crowned champion. An audience of 14,000 Starbucks store managers and employees watched from the stands during the company’s Leadership Experience event at the trendy Las Vegas Sphere venue.

The competition was a clear nod to the World Barista Championship, drawing inspiration from its format and rules, including signature drinks and storytelling scoring.

The steady rise of competition cafés

Given the influence of coffee competitions, it’s inevitable that more people are pushing to replicate similar elevated experiences in a coffee shop setting.

Endless roasters and cafés offer a small selection of high-end, exceptional, and limited-edition coffees. These lots are often incredibly small in size, and sometimes frozen to preserve freshness and flavour as much as possible, as seen in Proud Mary and ONA coffee shops, for instance.

Other cafés, such as London’s Rosslyn, offer off-menu coffees through a programme that includes some of the rarest lots from the world’s leading roasters. Customers need to scan a QR code to access this menu, creating a sense of exclusivity and prestige that drives further interest in these coffees.

“Competition” cafés and roasters, such as Special Guests in London, UK, Standout Coffee in Stockholm, Sweden, and the recently opened Lohas Café in Bogotá, Colombia, also exemplify this trend. These businesses focus exclusively on competition and award-winning coffees, bringing consumers closer to the highest standards of quality and innovation.

“We want to offer Colombian consumers and coffee lovers passing through Bogotá a chance to enjoy our competition coffees,” says Juan Pablo Campos, the founder and general manager at Lohas Beans, a B Corp green specialty coffee exporter in Colombia, which focuses heavily on competition lots. “This is a unique opportunity, as these coffees were previously unavailable in the domestic market.

“Interest in competition coffees is clearly growing. Colombian coffee consumers, as well as educated and knowledgeable international buyers, are becoming more aware of processing methods and are opening up to new profiles,” he adds. “They are curious and want to experience more sophisticated flavours.”

Why interest in competition and auction-winning coffees is growing

Reports of record-breaking auction prices and US $635 cups of coffee spur consumer interest in what makes these coffees so unique – and what warrants such a high price tag.

“From the beginning in 2009, we believed that specialty coffee is a reflection of different terroirs, which we showcase on our menu,” says Christophe Servell, the founder of Terres de Café, a specialty coffee roaster in France that offers over 30 of the world’s most exclusive coffees. 

“On one hand, there is a lot of hype around these coffees. On the other hand, an increasing number of people are discovering and appreciating the taste of exceptional coffees. It’s still a niche market, but consumption is on the rise,” he adds. “This is why we serve competition coffees, but we also have a large range of 84 to 88-point coffees, sourced directly from farms.”

At competitions and auctions, we often see a phenomenon known as “premiumisation”. This is the practice of using rarity, exclusivity, and superior quality to drive up brand appeal and price, often to an astronomic level. When these lots are limited in size, prices and sense of value only increase.

In certain markets, such as Taiwan, Japan, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea, there is a shared cultural appreciation for high-quality products as part of the consumption experience, including coffee. Buyers are willing to pay higher prices year after year, continually seeking the latest high-end specialty coffees to feature on their menus. 

A growing number of consumers want to try these coffees, tapping into the desire for status, a sense of belonging, and a feeling of specialness. The exclusivity and scarcity of competition lots are ways for coffee drinkers to signal their social status and create a sense of belonging among like-minded consumers who share a mutual appreciation for the nuanced flavour profiles of “pure” filter coffee and espresso.

The growing interest in exclusive coffees and competition cafés is extending beyond markets typically associated with premiumisation, driven by the expansion of the middle class and rising disposable incomes.

“We are in the early stages of a new market segment that presents coffee as an alternative to spirits and allows consumers to socialise over a unique cup of coffee. Understanding these profiles and creating a special setting to enjoy them is a valuable proposition,” says Juan. “We believe this is something we’ll continue to see expanding in markets across the world.”

A point of differentiation

Certain markets will always be more renowned for seeking out high-scoring, ultra-expensive coffees at auctions. But as specialty coffee consumption booms in countries and regions like India, Eastern Europe, and the United Arab Emirates, we’re likely to see more competition cafés appear across the globe, albeit at a slow and steady pace.

Exclusivity and scarcity drive brand appeal; however, they can also be limiting factors in the sustainable growth of these businesses. When sourcing small quantities of exceptional quality coffee, roasters and café operators must be flexible and agile, developing strong, trusting relationships with a range of producers and exporters who specialise in experimental processing methods, unique varieties, and farming best practices.

Product consistency is absolutely essential when it comes to serving competition and auction-winning coffees, especially when they make up the bulk or entirety of a menu. 

“Our roasting philosophy is the same for an 85-point coffee or a competition lot, balancing and preserving all the aromas,” Christophe says. “The primary challenge is to maintain perfect consistency, especially because the batch size between micro lots and competition coffees can vary.

“We need to make consumers understand that coffee is not only coffee, and that it’s better to drink less but better coffee.”

The attention to detail also needs to extend beyond coffee. Competition cafés must offer an exceptional experience in every sense, from the equipment they use to the way they make customers feel when they walk through the door.

“In the context of Colombia, selecting a competitor-minded barista to lead the coffee experience bar was challenging,” Juan says. “In our country, we’re not used to respecting the barista. It is, of course, a two-sided equation. The barista needs to have a competitor mindset, and the company needs to treat the barista with respect.

“You need to source and prepare the other ingredients required to deliver a differentiated beverage and experience,” he adds. “There are multiple factors, as we all know, that are behind a properly served coffee.”

There’s a limit to the growth of competition cafés, but they serve an essential purpose in specialty coffee: to bring consumers closer to exceptional flavour experiences.

To achieve this, operators need to take a specially curated approach to green coffee sourcing, roasting, coffee preparation, customer service, and more. Meticulousness, care, and precision are non-negotiable if cafés and roasters want to showcase the full potential of their coffees.

Enjoyed this? Then read our article on why espresso gadgets have become so popular.

Photo credits: L’imagerie, Lohas Beans

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