1. Why the AeroPress Championship Works Differently From Every Other Coffee Competition

I should confess something at the start, so you don't catch me later: I have never competed in anything, unless you count the argument with my mother about which of us is more tired. But I follow the AeroPress Championship with the attention other people reserve for their therapists, and I think I have worked out why.

The trouble with every other competition

Most coffee competitions are built in layers. Judges score technique, presentation, workflow, sensory accuracy. Each layer has its own points and its own logic, and the rulebook has the thickness of a Russian novel, from the darker period. That structure rewards long preparation, but it also raises the bar for entry. You need equipment, training, stage confidence, and a routine polished to the point where it no longer resembles human activity.

I have the stage confidence of a cactus. So this is a format I could only ever love from the sidelines.

The rule that fits on a napkin

Three judges taste two cups side by side without knowing who brewed them. They point to the one they prefer. No discussion. No notes. No presentation score. The cup with two or more votes moves on.

That is the entire rulebook. You can read it aloud in ten seconds and still have time left over to doubt yourself.

This is not a stripped-down version of a "serious" competition. It is a different philosophy, and one of the kinds I like, because it does not require me to be a different person. The question is: which cup tastes better right now? Not which is technically more correct. Not which comes from the more famous bar. Not which was brewed by the man with the better beard. Simply: this one or that one.

Anonymity as consolation

Because the judges don't know whose cup they are tasting, reputation leaves the equation.

For me this is an almost religious idea. I have spent decades trying to impress people who already had an opinion of me, and the results are a matter of record. Here, nobody has an opinion. There is only a cup, and the cup does not know whose it is and does not care.

In Sofia, that is exactly what happened. Twenty-five people brewed the same coffee on the same device, but not with the same thinking. Some changed the temperature. Some extended the time. Some stirred as if settling old scores, others barely touched the slurry of coffee and water in the chamber. One starting point, different decisions, different cups.

And one of those people, Velimir Kutsarov, won on his first entry.

What this means for the rest of us

In most formats, the newcomer is behind before he starts. He doesn't know the rhythm, the pressure, the expectations. He doesn't know when the judges are watching his hands and when they are watching the clock. In that situation I would be watching the door.

Here, the advantage of experience almost entirely disappears. There is a flip side too, one that pleases me in a not especially noble way: the experienced competitor loses the protection of his reputation. If his cup is weaker, nobody will defend it with a biography. The format is equally merciless to both sides, which makes it, in my view, the only fair thing I have seen in years.

The brewing looks simple. The decisions are not. And the audience, standing a metre from the table, sees every one of them: the stir, the pause, the press, and the trembling of the hands, which I know well, though from other occasions.

If you remember one thing from this piece, make it this: the format works because it asks a question anyone can understand and few can answer consistently under pressure. Which cup would you choose? I usually choose the wrong one, but at least I do it quickly.