Hello friends,

Something happened in Brussels last month that we have not stopped thinking about.

On 27 June, at the World Brewers Cup finals, the announcer read out the name of the 2026 champion. Nas Jaafar. A 38-year-old barista from Malaysia. The first Malaysian to ever win it.

If you are not familiar, the World Brewers Cup is the biggest stage in manual brewing. National champions from over 50 countries, three days of competition, every detail scored. Not just the coffee, but how you brew, how long you brew, even how many circles you make with the kettle.

And this year, it came home to our side of the world.

Nas did not arrive as a favourite. He was turned down twice by a popular coffee franchise early in his career. He spent years as a barista, a quality controller, a café owner. He competed nationally for four years before finally winning the Malaysia Brewers Cup in 2025. Brussels was his first time on the international stage.

His coach, Jhon Christhoper of Fugol Coffee Roasters in Indonesia, put him through months of preparation. Some days that meant brewing 50 cups. Nas has said that what people see is only ten minutes on stage, but the preparation takes months. Sometimes years.

When they announced second place and it was not his name, he went blank. He thought maybe third, maybe second. Not this.

His first thought when it landed: "You actually made it. Thank God."

We love that. No fireworks. Just relief, and gratitude.

Here is the part that got us.

Nas built his entire presentation around one idea. Resistance.

He opened by pouring water into three beakers filled with different materials, showing the judges how structure and particle size change the speed of flow. Higher resistance, slower flow. Then he turned it on himself. The dead ends in his own life, he said, were resistance too. Not something to remove. Something to understand, and shape with purpose.

If you read our recent issues on drippers and drainage, this will sound familiar. Flow is not just about how much water you pour. It is about what the water has to move through. Nas took that same physics and made it a story about a life.

Technical first, story second. He has said it himself: the technique should always be the core, and the storytelling should be the reflection of it.

We think about our own copy that way too.

His winning coffee was a Panama Geisha, anaerobic natural, brewed on a flat-bottom dripper sitting on a Hario Switch base. Percolation and immersion in one brew.

The shape of it, roughly:

Pour — 100g of water, circular pour, let it drain freely (fast flow, clarity, citrus) Close — shut the Switch, pour the remaining 100g, let it steep (slow contact, sweetness, texture) Open — release for a final short drain

Total brew time just over two minutes.

If you own a Switch, this is very playable at home. Start with the coffee in this month's box and see what the two stages give you. Fast water first, patient water second.

It has been about eight years since Malaysia even reached a Brewers Cup final. Last year Jason Loo placed fourth at the World Barista Championship, the highest a Malaysian has ever finished there. Now this.

Specialty coffee in our corner of the world has spent a long time looking outward for validation. Watching a champion crowned from three hours up the road, coached by an Indonesian, celebrated by baristas from KL to Singapore, feels like something shifting.

Nas said he hopes young people in the region see that nothing is impossible, even on the world stage. That it has always been about heart and mindset, not just coffee.

We believe that too.

With love, The folks at Prodigal