At a glance:

• 688  Hoff's winning score in the Calgary final
• 49.5  the point gap over second place
• 1,000+ member entities registered with AKSI SCAI, Indonesia's specialty coffee trade body
• October 22–25 when Hoff competes next, at the World Barista Championship in Panama City

Jill Hoff, Manager of Quality and Training at Monogram Coffee, won the 2026 Canadian National Barista Championship (CNBC) in Calgary with a final score of 688  nearly 50 points clear of runner-up Matthew Song. The coffee behind her routine was Indonesian Liberica, grown in Central Java and processed using a Natural Anaerobic method by a producer who goes by Reza online. Indonesia's specialty coffee trade body, AKSI SCAI, posted the win to Instagram within a day, and the clip has since pulled in thousands of shares. Hoff now heads to the 2026 World Barista Championship in Panama City this October. 

What Is Indonesian Liberica Coffee, Exactly?

Liberica is one of four coffee species grown commercially, alongside Arabica, Robusta, and the rarer Excelsa. Dutch planters shipped it into Java in the 1870s as a stopgap against leaf rust, and pockets of it have survived since in districts like Kendal and Temanggung in Central Java. The trees grow tall, the cherries run oversized, and the cupped coffee traditionally leans toward a thick, almost jackfruit-like sweetness rather than the brighter acidity people associate with Arabica.

That jackfruit note is what makes this win odd. Liberica isn't the bean a competitor usually reaches for when chasing fruit-forward, wine-like flavors that's normally an Arabica job. Processing, not the bean itself, did the heavy lifting here.

How Did Anaerobic Processing Pull Out Grape and Blood Orange?

Natural Anaerobic processing seals whole, unwashed coffee cherries in oxygen-restricted tanks to ferment before drying, instead of fermenting them in open air or water. It's a method that's spread fast through competition circuits because it can coax flavors out of a bean that wouldn't otherwise show up. According to AKSI SCAI's post, the processor known as Reza (@pemroseskatrock) ran this Central Java lot through that method, and the resulting cup carried grape and blood orange notes through Hoff's competition pours.

Who Is Jill Hoff?

Hoff isn't new to this stage. She first won the Canadian title in 2020 and represented Canada at the World Barista Championship in Milan the following year, becoming the first woman to do so for the country. Six years and several competition cycles later, she's back on top  this time with a sourcing story that runs through Java instead of the usual Latin American or East African lots.