Asia's World Champions
Within the same general stretch of years, three small East Asian food-and-drink businesses each produced a genuine world champion — not a regional title, not a "best of" list assembled by a magazine, but an outright global competition win, independently verifiable and independently earned.
Wu Pao-chun opened his flagship bakery in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, in November 2010, months after his rose-lychee-and-millet-wine loaf won the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie — bread's world championship. The bakery still bakes and ships that exact signature loaf today, alongside a rotating range of European-style breads and pineapple cakes, from the same Kaohsiung base the win put on the map.
In Taipei, Berg Wu started selling coffee from a tricycle in 2009. Two years later he opened Simple Kaffa, and in 2016 became the first Taiwanese barista to win the World Barista Championship — a result that turned a small operation into one of Taipei's most closely watched coffee addresses. The shop still pairs a working roastery with a café built around a central marble bar, keeping roasting and serving under one roof.
Across the water in Busan, South Korea, four friends converted a roughly 140-square-foot restaurant storage room into a take-out coffee bar in 2007. Momos rebuilt itself around specialty coffee two years later and has practiced direct trade with producers since 2011; the company now works with more than 150 producers across 16 countries. Co-founder Jooyeon Jeon became the first Korean to win the World Barista Championship in 2019, teammate Kyeongha Chu followed with the 2021 World Cup Tasters Championship, and the flagship store now sits among four Momos locations across Busan — all built around beans the founders selected and priced themselves at farm level.
Their documented starting points were modest — a bakery, a tricycle and a storage room. What they had in common was a willingness to compete on the world's own terms, and each team won a global title.
Article references
The houses in this story
- Wu Pao Chun Bakery Lingya District, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (flagship)
Wu Pao-chun opened his flagship bakery in Kaohsiung in November 2010, months after his rose-lychee-and-millet-wine loaf won the Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie, bread's world championship. The bakery still bakes and ships that signature loaf alongside a rotating range of European-style breads and pineapple cakes from its Kaohsiung base. store page → · open in the atlas → - Simple Kaffa Taipei / Taiwan
Berg Wu started selling coffee from a tricycle in 2009, two years before he opened Simple Kaffa in Taipei in 2011. store page → · open in the atlas → - Momos Coffee Flagship Store Busan South
A Busan specialty-coffee roastery that began in a 140-square-foot storage room in 2007 and now direct-trades with over 150 producers across 16 countries. Its team includes South Korea's first World Barista Champion. store page → · open in the atlas →