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as the brewer's skill whereas in Siphonist Championship, it has The great effort of Malaysia Specialty Coffee Association
more weight on the handling of siphon and the signature drinks. to make Malaysia recognized as a sanctioned country by the WCE
I find that it is more challenging to compete in Siphonist Cham- organization since 2015, that is the year I represented Malaysia in
pionship in terms of timing, as you need to prepare 3 blended WBrC!
coffee and 3 signature drinks in that 15 minutes, which means With such opportunity to represent the country, more
you cannot afford to lose even a second. Despite that, in siphon, talented and passionate people will participate in national com-
you get more room to play around with the blend, the ratio, and petitions, to fight for the opportunity to bring honour back to
the ingredients. the country. At this rate, Malaysia will soon be on par with other
Having competed in Sweden for WBrC, the experience coffee nations.
definitely gives me the edge of being more calm on world stage,
and one important lesson learnt is that you need to be extra cau- Was your training tougher than usual? How was it different
tious when packing beans for long haul flights, as beans quality compared to your Brewer's Cup routine and what were
will very likely to be affected by changes in elevations. some of the challenges you faced?
Siphon definitely tougher! In terms of the time limit to
As we all know the WSC is a rather small championship with prepare 2 sets of drinks, in terms of routine handling and creativ-
a lot less participants, but the competition has been trying ity, in terms of availability of resources, and last but not least, in
to gain more hype and increase its popularity in the world terms of my busy work schedule to balance between my job and
arena, how do you think the competition can improve, in practice sessions. But having said that, I am very glad that I have
national and international terms? a very supportive team who is always there for me. I salute them.
I believe that each championship organized is very
meaningful regardless of its number of participants. Being there
in WSC myself, I wouldn’t categorize WSC as small because of
the impressive organizational skills of the Specialty Coffee As-
sociation of Japan.
The entire set-up of the event and the stage, together
with the effort of the organizers, one would definitely feel their
drive and passion to introduce siphon to the rest of the world.
I do not think that I am in the position to comment
how to improve the competition. It’s only my first year in the
Siphonist Championship! From observation, the only little
feedback that I could share from a competitor’s point of view
is that perhaps some of the volunteers could be better versed
in English. However, all the volunteers should be commended
for the their effort! They were extremely helpful when you
needed them.
The WSC is relatively "young" since the first champion-
ship was in 2009 and this is the first year it is organized outside of
Japan. The following year, it’ll be held in Taiwan instead. So that
tells you that they are reaching out to the world and given time it
will become an equally important world coffee event.
Other setbacks could be the limited accessibility to
Siphon equipment’s. The competitors need to practice with the
group halogen beam heaters and you need at least 3 to practice
your routine. It quite an expensive experience as well.

Tell us about the coffees you used for the competition.
For this competition, I used a blend of 2 geisha’s, the
Natural Process Panama Ironman Geisha and Slow-Dried Process
Costa Rica Dota El at a ratio of 50:50. Two times a Malaysian Champion! What are some words of
As these two coffees had different processes, I wanted inspiration that you can share with the baristas out there?
to get the body and flavours of Ironman, and the sweetness of This may sound cliché but it's not about being better
Costa Rica. The results gave the blend a very rounded, sweet and than others. It's about being better than you were yesterday and
balanced cup. most importantly to always believe in yourself.

How do you think Malaysia has progressed in the last two Any plans in competing again in the coming champion-
years as a coffee nation and how can we improve our- ships and if yes, why?
selves? For the time being, I will be back to focus on work. If my
The Specialty Coffee industry in Malaysia is getting work schedule permits, I definitely look forward to competing as
very, very exciting! From being relatively new in specialty coffee in each competition, I gain new knowledge and make new friends
within the culture of Nanyang kopi, to the mushrooms of Third every time I compete and I love it! We shall see where the wind
Wave cafes, and now the eligibility of our national champions to takes me next year, and hopefully if I do decide to compete again,
compete in world stage! I will do well.
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