Raleigh Hosts US Brewers Cup and Cup Tasters Championships at Champion-Founded Roastery
Two of America’s most intense coffee competitions are converging on Wake Forest, North Carolina at the end of this month—and the venue choice carries its own competitive pedigree.
The 2026 US Brewers Cup and US Cup Tasters Championships run March 26-29 at Black & White Coffee Roasters headquarters. The roastery was founded in 2017 by Lem Butler and Kyle Ramage, who won the US Barista Championship in back-to-back years (2016 and 2017, respectively). That makes this a case of champions hosting champions.
Two Disciplines, One Venue
The Brewers Cup tests pour-over precision and coffee knowledge. Twenty-four competitors will brew manually for a panel of judges, demonstrating their command of extraction theory and sensory evaluation. Previous finalists have 48 hours to claim six reserved spots before general registration fills out the field.
Cup Tasters is a different beast entirely—think competitive coffee speed-dating. Forty-eight competitors face triangulated sets of cups, racing to identify which cup differs from the others. It’s a test of palate calibration and nerve, often decided by seconds.
Both competitions feed into the World Coffee Championships, with US winners representing the country at World of Coffee San Diego in April.
Why Black & White
The Wake Forest facility already proved its competition credentials by hosting last year’s US Barista Championship. For Butler and Ramage, who built their roastery specifically to make competition-quality coffee accessible to everyday drinkers, the venue choice represents something of a homecoming for the championship circuit.
“We were inspired by the coffee we experienced at the competitive level and wanted to make those coffees as widely available as possible,” the founders have said of their mission. Their 15-kilo Loring roaster and training facilities provide the infrastructure championship events demand.
Black & White now operates as part of the FairWave Specialty Coffee Collective following an acquisition last year, though the roastery maintains its identity and continues to produce the single-origin and competition-grade coffees that built its reputation.
The Competitive Landscape
This marks the fourth and fifth US Coffee Championship events announced for the 2026 season, following Latte Art, Coffee in Good Spirits, and the Roasters Championship (which crowned Wenbo Yang of Story Coffee in Bellevue earlier this month).
The US Barista Championship, typically the flagship event, is scheduled for Denver with Dalla Corte providing espresso machines and Franke sponsoring equipment. But for pure palate prowess, the Raleigh events showcase a different kind of coffee mastery—one focused on extraction precision and sensory acuity rather than espresso artistry.
Why This Matters
Coffee competitions serve as R&D labs for the broader specialty coffee industry. Techniques refined under competitive pressure eventually filter into cafes and home brewing practices. The winners who emerge from Raleigh will carry insights about extraction optimization and sensory training that shape how the rest of us think about brewing.
For those who can’t attend in person, the US Coffee Championships typically provide live streaming coverage. The winners will represent the US at the World Coffee Championships in San Diego, April 10-12, where they’ll compete against champions from dozens of coffee-producing and consuming nations.