China's First World Coffee Champion Wu Zelin Opens Coffee Shop in the Air?!

The Journey of Tse-lin Wu, China's First World Coffee Champion

Tse-lin Wu won the 2016 World Barista Championship (WBC), becoming the first world coffee champion from China.

After watching the 2008 WBC in Copenhagen, Wu began peddling coffee from a tricycle cart at markets, practising his craft. In 2011 he opened his first Simple Kaffa coffee shop.

Once the shop was running, Wu started preparing for competition. From 2013 he won the Taiwan Barista Championship three years in a row, and in 2016 he took the world title at the WBC.

Quality and Consistency Come First

When Simple Kaffa first opened, like any new coffee shop, business was slow and only a handful of coffees were sold each day. Unlike many new shops that pour their effort into promotion, Wu kept strict control over every coffee he served.

He handled everything himself, from green bean quality and roasting to the final drink, and he stayed behind the bar to serve every customer with full professionalism. That discipline paid off later in competition, because it gave him a precise understanding of how different coffee drinkers experience a cup and what they want from it.

Growth and Recognition

After the world title, Wu opened two more branches in busy commercial districts of Taiwan. Simple Kaffa was also ranked number one among the world's 50 best coffee shops by the travel website Big 7 Travel in both 2019 and 2020.

Despite the expansion and the growing fame, Wu kept tight control over everything the stores offered and set extremely high standards for hiring baristas.

On a trip to Taiwan a few years ago I visited the shop. Every barista was a competition-seasoned professional with an unusually deep command of coffee knowledge.

The Art of Coffee Service

On service, the baristas deliver what can only be described as one-on-one attention as long as you are standing at the bar. Serving a customer, they stay focused on that person's experience, talking and explaining through the whole process while building each drink carefully and consistently.

Both the brand and the product leave a lasting impression. It is not cheap, but the experience is well worth it and delivers real value.

A coffee shop lives on customer loyalty. A memorable impression not only stays with people, it makes them bring the brand up when coffee comes up in daily conversation. Reaching that point takes professionalism, attention to detail, humility and strict standards across the whole operation.

Reaching New Heights: Cloud Kaffa

The pandemic hit food and beverage hard, but Simple Kaffa kept growing on the strength of its reputation. In mid-January this year it expanded to the 88th floor of Taipei 101, opening an aerial flagship store called Cloud Kaffa. With high-altitude clouds above and the Taipei skyline to look out on, the combination of excellent coffee and a view from above is enough to make anyone want to go.

To help coffee lovers better feel what it is like to be wrapped in daytime clouds, Wu specially developed the Sky Blend, a medium-dark roast combining washed Ethiopian and washed Honduran beans. With notes of citrus, floral, dried fruit and oolong tea, it invites tasters to imagine floating in a city in the sky, surrounded by cloud and mist.

The Secret to Success

Success in any field often comes down to these seemingly simple but detail-rich elements. A master succeeds through personal effort, and a coffee shop succeeds through the professionalism and service experience of the people running it.

Image source: Internet

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

A medium-dark blend like Sky Blend sits close to the medium-roast range, which is where coffee reaches its most balanced point: darker beans turn bitter and heavier, lighter beans turn sour and thinner. FrontStreet Queen's Estate, grown in Brazil, the world's largest coffee producer, is a rare Yellow Bourbon. Medium roasted, it shows cream peanut, chocolate, toasted bread and sugarcane with a clear sweetness, and works as a pour-over as well as in a moka pot or espresso machine.

If you want a sweeter medium roast, FrontStreet Strawberry Candy leads with fruit. It combines honey-processed Costa Rican coffee with washed Panama Geisha and is roasted medium so the cup shows both orange-blossom honey and a rounded sweetness, suited to cold brew, pour-over and espresso alike. For a gentler everyday cup, FrontStreet 2013 Natural Typica is a flagship Chinese specialty coffee with the classic Yunnan small-bean character, roasted medium to bring out nuts, brown sugar, black tea and dried apricot.