As Starbucks pulls back from Boston, indie cafes benefit. Plus, Bodum recalls 5.9 million French presses, and China’s Pan Wei is the new World Barista Champion.
✉️ Coffee News Club: curated reflection on recent industry headlines.
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‘China’s Pan Wei Crowned 2026 World Barista Champion’ – via Global Coffee Report
The 2026 coffee competition cycle concluded last week as the 26th World Barista Championship (WBC) took place during World of Coffee Panama. After four days of hard-fought competition featuring 49 national champions, China’s Pan Wei clinched the title.
Pan Wei won using two gesha coffees, one from Finca El Pergamino in Panama and the other from Colombia’s Finca Las Flores. He became the first Chinese barista to win the competition, in what was just his second appearance at the WBC.
This year’s runner-up was Shing Win, representing Malaysia, while Frederick Ruben from the United Arab Emirates came third. Australia’s Gabriel Tan was fourth, Jane Kawinnart came in fifth representing Thailand, and Canada’s Jill Hoff took sixth place. Congratulations to Pan Wei, the finalists, and everyone who competed!
Read more on the World Barista Championship final here and watch Pan Wei’s winning performance here.
‘Bodum Recalls 5.9 Million French Presses After Burn Reports’ – via Daily Coffee News
Bodum USA is voluntarily recalling around 5.9 million French presses sold in the U.S. over the past 52 years due to a risk of the glass carafes breaking.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), which announced the recall on October 29, “the carafe can unexpectedly break during use if the glass carafe is damaged or cracked, including by use of a metal spoon to stir the coffee, posing a risk of serious burn injuries.”
Bodum has received 70 reports of carafes breaking and 48 reports of burns to users. The specific models involved—Bodum 8-cup and 12-cup Bistro, Brazil, Caffettiera, Chambord, Crema, Java, Jesper, and Kenya models—were sold between 1974 and October 2026 at home goods stores and online. The CPSC warned consumers against using metal spoons or utensils to stir their coffee.
As part of the recall, affected customers can claim a Bodum-designed plastic stirring spoon and a warning label. In a statement, Bodum noted that, “While the rate of reported incidents involving carafe breakage during use is extremely low, especially considering that Bodum has sold millions of these products in the U.S. for decades, this recall will further encourage the safe use of our French Press Coffee Makers.”
Read the full story here and visit Bodum’s recall website for more details here.
‘Starbucks Is Disappearing From Downtown Boston. Local Coffee Shops Are Cashing In’ – via Inc.
As part of CEO Brian Niccol’s ongoing “Back to Starbucks” revival plan, the coffee giant has been closing underperforming stores across the United States. In September 2025, Starbucks said it would close 400 stores, and last month it announced another 250.
Several of those closures have been in Greater Boston, Nikita Osadchiy and Samuel A. Church report for Inc. Starbucks has shuttered nearly 20 Boston-area stores over the past year (five of which were unionized). The closures mean the company now has only one downtown Boston location remaining.
Starbucks’ retreat has been good news for the city’s independent coffee scene, however. Rebecca Fitzgerald, president of George Howell Coffee, told Inc. that sales of specialty drinks at its two cafes nearest to now-closed Starbucks stores are up 30-35% on average compared to last year. Pumpkin spice lattes have seen a particularly large rise, Fitzgerald said.
According to Inc., other cafes reported a similar uptick in traffic while noting the difficulty of ascribing the rise specifically to the Starbucks closures. “We’re definitely seeing new faces, but it’s the ebb and flow of Boston traffic,” Thomas McManus of downtown coffee shop Espresso Love said. Starbucks said it plans to “resume growing its coffeehouse count in the 2026 fiscal year,” Osadchiy and Church write.
Read the full story on the Boston coffee shops replacing Starbucks here.
More News
‘Costa Rica Coffee Income Falls 30% as the Strong Colón Bites’ – via Tico Times
‘De’Longhi Boosts Ownership of La Marzocco and Eversys Business to 88%’ – via Daily Coffee News
‘UC Davis Joins Global Coffee and Cacao Research Initiative’ – via Global Coffee Report
‘New Flavor Map Seeks to Center Local Voices in Kenyan Coffee’ – via Fresh Cup Magazine
Is Coffee Good for You?
Coffee is good for you—at least, according to the vast majority of studies. However, adding cream and sugar impacts coffee’s healthiness, and new research from Tufts University shows that Americans are adding more than they used to.
The study, published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, analyzed dietary data from 30,000 participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Between 2003 and 2018, although coffee consumption stayed relatively stable, the average calories consumed from coffee rose 40% from 43 to 60 per day.
Dairy milk remained the most commonly added ingredient by weight, but non-dairy creamer and milk saw the biggest increase. Average consumption more than doubled over the 15-year study period. “We found that non-dairy creamer being added to coffee has now passed both sugar and dairy for its contribution to the total energy consumed from coffee,” study lead author Yongyi Pan said in a press release. Non-dairy creamers contributed an average of 18.5 calories per day in 2018, compared to 16 calories from sugar and 11 from dairy milk.
This rise mirrors overall coffee trends, where oat milk and other dairy alternatives have exploded in popularity over the past decade. “Even though it has been on the market since the 1950s, non-dairy creamer has increased in popularity in recent years as consumers seek plant-based or dairy alternatives,” Pan said. The authors noted that the study relied on self-reported dietary data, which can be unreliable.
The study didn’t examine the health implications of its findings, but previous research has found that adding sugar and other additives does change coffee’s health-giving effects. One 2013 study found that drinking coffee had a protective effect against prostate cancer, but that adding sugar and cream diminished it.
A 2025 study (also from Tufts) found similar results. “The health benefits of coffee might be attributable to its bioactive compounds, but our results suggest that the addition of sugar and saturated fat may reduce the mortality benefits,” that study’s senior author Fang Fang Zhang said at the time.
Beyond the Headlines
‘Questions to Ask Before Buying a Used Coffee Roaster’ by Scott K. Plail
