Our Coffee Excellence Manager carried Australia to the world final in Brussels — and came home a silver medallist. It’s the best result an Australian has posted on this stage in more than a decade.

In June, on the World of Coffee stage in Brussels, Zest’s Simon Gautherin brewed against the best brewers on the planet — and finished second in the world. The 2026 World Brewers Cup went to Malaysia’s Nas Jaafar on 469 points. Simon took silver on 461, with Hong Kong’s Bavis Kwong third on 459. Eight points, across an entire world championship, was all that separated first from second.

For Australian coffee, it’s a landmark. Not since Matt Perger’s world title in 2012 has an Australian brewer finished this high. And there was a quiet number buried in the scoresheet that told the real story: Simon posted the highest open-service score of any finalist — 346 — the round where a competitor brews their own coffee, their own way, and is judged purely on the cup and the case they make for it.

THE ROAD TO BRUSSELS

The ticket was earned at home. In November, Simon won the 2026 Australian Brewers Cup in Melbourne, taking the national title and the right to represent Australia on the world stage. Brussels came almost exactly ten years after he first arrived in the country — a fitting milestone for a competitor who has spent that decade thinking, teaching and refining.

ONE IDEA: CLARITY

Simon built his entire routine around a single word — clarity. Not just clarity in the cup, but clarity of idea: coffee that’s easier to understand, easier to enjoy, and easier to connect with. He kept returning to Einstein’s line: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

That principle shaped every choice on stage. He served two Geisha coffees chosen for distinct, separated flavours — a cup with lower extraction and lighter strength, so each note has room to be heard. Water was his final instrument: a custom mineral profile, developed with Apax Lab (the water venture he co-founded), built to add texture, florality and sweetness in precisely measured amounts. “Clarity shaped everything,” he said — “the coffees we sourced, the flavour spectrum we focused on, the way we brewed, the way we used water and the way we communicated the experience.”

WHAT IT MEANS FOR ZEST

Simon is Zest’s Coffee Excellence Manager — the person behind the training, mentorship and dial-in sessions that keep our partner cafés pouring at their best. The thinking that earned a world silver medal isn’t locked away in a competition; it’s the same thinking he brings to every café and every roast.

So the next time a Zest coffee tastes clear, clean and easy to love — that’s not an accident. That’s the standard. Congratulations, Simon. Second in the world, and the best of it still poured one cup at a time.

Taste the difference for yourself — explore our coffee online or find a Zest partner café near you.