Michaela Ruazol, a Filipina professional barista and business owner based in Dubai, was crowned as the UAE National Barista Champion 2024 during the recently concluded World of Coffee Dubai.
Held from January 21-23 at the Dubai World Trade Center, the World of Coffee Dubai 2024 featured the UAE National Barista Championship where the country’s most skilled baristas convened to prepare and present their specialty beverages before thousands of experts, specialists, and enthusiasts.
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During the competition, each barista is asked to perform several tasks simultaneously—work on the espresso machine as they prepare their coffee beverages, interact with the audience, and explain their actions and coffee selections.
An international team of judges evaluated the participants based on the following criteria: quality of the beverage, presentation technique, creativity, and technical proficiency.
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Emerging victorious once again, Michaela Ruazol has reclaimed her title as the UAE National Barista Champion, having previously clinched it in 2018 and 2021.
In an interview with The Filipino Times, Ruazol expressed her delight in winning, saying, “I have been competing since 2018 and I still feel that burning passion to elevate specialty coffee and to share all my experiences through my routine presentations. Winning the UAE National Barista Championship again is really a humbling achievement, I got to share my story and pushed boundaries in specialty coffee.”
Over the years, she has actively participated in different coffee competitions, making her mark in the coffee industry. Aside from being the UAE National Barista Champion in 2018 and 2021, she was also the UAE National Cezve Ibrik Champion 2019, World Cezve Ibrik Champion 2022, World Barista Championship Semifinalist 2021 (ranked 11), and World Barista Championship Semifinalist 2022 (ranked 9).
For her, winning her first-ever Barista Championship trophy not only sparked her passion for pursuing a career in the coffee industry but also fueled her drive to open her own coffee shop.
“I joined the barista championship and won my first national championship in 2018, then I wanted to open a coffee shop. An opportunity came so I grabbed it,” Ruazol recalled.
As the Co-Founder of Typica UAE, a specialty cafe with branches in Dubai and Ras Al Khaimah, she is determined to make her business flourish and at the same time exhibit her unique talent in coffee-making through competitions.
“Coffee has been my companion for seven years now and it helped me to know what career I really want to have, and what life I wanted to create for me and my family. Coffee changed me, it made me become more passionate in what I do, it made me able to share what I can and what I want. I am so thankful that coffee made me think to do what I love, so I did,” she expressed.
After surpassing Kemal Risyad from Archers Coffee, who won second place, and Nooran Al Bannay from Coffee Architecture, who came in third, Ruazol now prepares to represent the country at the World Barista Championship in South Korea on May 1 to 4.
