From Malta to the World Roasting Championship

When I first entered the UK Coffee Roasting Championship in 2023, I honestly didn’t know exactly what to expect. I knew I loved coffee, I knew I loved roasting, and I knew I wanted to challenge myself in a completely different way. At the time, competition felt intimidating, not just because of the technical side of roasting, but because of the people involved, the pressure, and the level of detail required throughout the entire process.

In 2019, I moved from Malta to the UK to continue building my career in specialty coffee. The transition completely changed my perspective on the industry. Moving into the UK coffee scene exposed me to a much larger and more competitive environment, where I quickly realised how much there still was to learn. Most of my experience was built through long shifts, constant cuppings, experimentation, mistakes and learning from the people around me every day.

I think one of the reasons I connected so deeply with coffee in the first place goes back to where everything started for me, working in a small café in Malta owned by close friends from Sicily.

At the time, I remember asking them what espresso meant to them and what made a coffee truly good. I expected them to talk about flavour, quality or origin. Instead, their answer stayed with me ever since.

They told me that espresso was never only about how good the coffee tastes. It was about the moment surrounding it. The memory it creates. The experience attached to it.

Whether it’s meeting a friend after a long time, sitting down for a business conversation, sharing a croissant and coffee with your partner in the morning, or simply having a quick espresso with a colleague during a busy day, coffee has always been about people first.

That perspective completely changed the way I viewed coffee.

And honestly, that is exactly what I want Sip Collective to become.

Not simply a coffee company, but a collective of people, experiences, stories and memories connected through coffee. A collection of exceptional coffees that carry not only flavour and craftsmanship, but also the stories of producers, roasters and everyone involved from origin to cup.

For me, coffee will always be at its best when it brings people together.

At the same time, I became obsessed with learning as much as possible about coffee. Over the years, I attended multiple SCA courses across brewing, sensory, green coffee and roasting, constantly trying to deepen my understanding of coffee from every perspective possible. Meanwhile, during my time in the UK, I also became a certified Q Grader, one of the highest and most respected certifications within the coffee industry, focused on sensory analysis, coffee evaluation and quality assessment.

That journey also took me across different parts of Europe, travelling to places like Ireland, Copenhagen and Bucharest to learn from other coffee professionals, experience different roasting philosophies and better understand the wider specialty coffee industry.

One of the most influential moments for me was spending time training one-to-one with Bogdan Georgescu. Learning directly from someone who had competed at such a high level completely changed the way I approached roasting, competition structure and sensory analysis. It made me realise how much discipline, preparation and emotional control truly sit behind competition roasting.

Competition roasting, however, introduced an entirely different perspective on coffee.

It forced me to slow down and understand roasting at a much deeper level.

From green analysis and roast planning to sensory evaluation and communication, every detail suddenly mattered more than ever before. You begin to realise that roasting competitions are not simply about producing a good roast profile, they are about understanding coffee holistically. The producer, the processing, the structure of the coffee, heat application, development, balance, clarity and consistency all become part of a much larger conversation.

Throughout this journey, I’ve always looked up to roasters like Alexandru Niculae and Rubens Gardelli, people who helped shape modern roasting through precision, transparency and an uncompromising focus on quality. Watching their approach to coffee and competition over the years became a huge source of inspiration for me, not only technically, but also philosophically in the way coffee can be communicated and shared with others.

One of the biggest lessons competitions taught me had very little to do with roasting itself, and much more to do with mindset, pressure and emotional control.

In my first UK Coffee Roasting Championship in 2023, I finished 7th. At the time, I was honestly very disappointed with the result because I truly believed I had produced one of the strongest blends in the competition, and when the scoresheets were eventually presented, it turned out that the blend had actually received the highest score amongst all competitors.

During practice and calibration, everything felt aligned, and for the first time I started feeling genuinely confident in my abilities as a competition roaster.

I’m also incredibly grateful that later that same year, I had the opportunity to coach the UK Roasting Champion during the World Coffee Roasting Championship in Taipei, Taiwan. Being present at a world-level competition so early in my own competition journey gave me an invaluable perspective on the level of preparation, composure and detail required at that stage.

Watching competitors from around the world perform under that kind of pressure made me realise that world competitions are not simply won through technical ability alone, but through consistency, mindset and emotional control.

But when it came to the single origin round, I completely lost focus.

I became too emotional and too nervous after feeling that the blend had gone so well. Instead of staying calm and composed throughout the entire competition, I allowed the pressure and excitement to take over, and I ended up making mistakes that ultimately affected the final result. Looking back now, that experience taught me one of the most important lessons in competition roasting: consistency matters more than isolated moments of success.

In 2024, I competed again, this time in Romania, and almost experienced the exact opposite situation. I produced what ended up being the highest scoring single origin roast in the competition, but then struggled during the blend round. It felt strangely familiar, another moment where parts of the competition went extremely well, but maintaining focus across every stage became the real challenge.

By the time 2026 arrived, I approached competition very differently.

I told myself before stepping onto the stage that no matter how well or badly one roast went, I would remain calm, controlled and fully focused until the very end of the competition. I stopped chasing emotional highs during the process and instead concentrated on consistency, structure and trust in my preparation.

Ironically, that calmer mindset became one of the biggest reasons I was finally able to perform at the level I knew I was capable of.

As I now prepare for the World Coffee Roasting Championship in Brussels, Belgium, I genuinely hope to perform at the level I know I’m capable of, but more importantly, I want to remain composed, focused and present throughout the experience. One of the biggest lessons competition has taught me over the years is that focusing purely on results can often become distracting. The real progression comes from focusing on improvement, preparation and trust in the process itself.

Since then, competitions have become less about standing on stage and more about progression, learning and connection. They introduced me to incredible producers, roasters and coffee professionals who continue to shape the way I think about coffee today. At the same time, they also helped reinforce something I’ve believed for a long time, that exceptional coffee should still feel approachable and inclusive.

One of the biggest misconceptions around competition coffee is that it only exists for a small group of people within specialty coffee. In reality, some of the most exciting coffees in the world can also be some of the most enjoyable and accessible when presented with transparency, education and context.

That idea became one of the foundations behind Sip Collective.

Sip Collective was never created simply as a coffee brand. It became a platform to share the coffees, experiences and lessons that shaped my journey, from Malta, to building my career within the UK coffee industry, to competing on the national stage and now preparing for the World Roasting Championship.

Winning the UK Coffee Roasting Championship 2026 still feels surreal to say out loud. Years of work, setbacks, preparation and support from so many people eventually led to that moment. But in many ways, it also feels like the beginning of a completely new chapter.

Preparing for Worlds has already pushed me further than any competition before. It has changed the way I think about sourcing, roasting, brewing and even communication around coffee itself. More importantly, it has reminded me why I fell in love with coffee in the first place, not because of trophies or titles, but because coffee has always been about people, shared experiences and continuous learning.

As Sip Collective continues to grow, I want to bring more people into that journey. Through coffees, education, videos, brewing guides and storytelling, the goal is to make specialty coffee feel less intimidating and more human.

Every coffee released through Sip Collective is part of that process. Every bag purchased directly supports the road to the World Roasting Championship and helps continue building something rooted in transparency, inclusivity and genuine passion for coffee.

At the end of the day, what truly matters most are the people around you, the people who support you, believe in you and continue standing beside you throughout the journey, regardless of placements or trophies. Those relationships, conversations and shared experiences will always mean far more to me than any final result ever could.

The road from Malta to the World Roasting Championship never felt linear, predictable or easy, but looking back now, I realise that every long production shift, every failed roast, every competition and every conversation along the way helped shape not only the roaster I’ve become, but the vision behind Sip Collective itself.

And honestly, this still feels like only the beginning.