“Why does good coffee cost RM18?”

World Champ Barista

The first Malaysian ever to win the World Brewers Cup, taking the title in Brussels on 27 June 2026 ahead of finalists from Australia, Hong Kong, the Czech Republic, South Korea and France. He is 37, and has been in coffee since 2014 as a barista, a cafe manager and a business owner. Today he handles regional sales for Falcon Coffees.

He placed fifth at the Malaysia Brewers Cup in early 2024. That is when he started working with his coach Jhon Christhoper, founder of Fugol Coffee Roasters, an Indonesia Brewers Cup champion and a World Brewers Cup finalist in Melbourne in 2022. He won Malaysia the following year, then the world the year after that.

His competition coffee was a natural anaerobic Geisha from Finca Nuguo in Panama, and his routine was built around how resistance shapes water flow, extraction and the final cup. He used it deliberately as a philosophy as much as a technique: if we understand and manage resistance, it can guide us toward better results.

It nearly came apart. His Ikawa roaster broke two days before he flew out, unexpected heat in Brussels changed how the coffee tasted, and replacement beans had to be sourced through a contact in Singapore and roasted fresh every morning before the temperature climbed. His coach’s mantra for the campaign: no one needs to expect us to win, our job is to make that expectation irrelevant.

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