Competitor stories: Kay Cheon

The 2025 United States Barista Champion, Kay Cheon, has built his career on a deep passion for specialty coffee and a relentless pursuit of excellence.

As the director of coffee at Dune Coffee Roasters in Santa Barbara, California, Kay has spent 13 years honing his skills, from behind the bar to the competition stage. His journey has been shaped by a desire to learn, improve, and share the beauty of specialty coffee with others.

Kay’s competition routine in 2025 was inspired by his childhood love of Lego—using simple building blocks to create something complex and meaningful. With this concept in mind, he chose to compete with Nestor Lasso’s Ombligon from El Diviso in Colombia and Jamison Savage’s Geisha from Finca Deborah in Panama. His precise approach and commitment to innovation led him to victory, showcasing his ability to balance technical skill with storytelling.

This year, Kay also incorporated the NCD Pulse distribution tool into his workflow – provided by Bombora Coffee + Water Supplies – ensuring a level of consistency crucial to his performance. We spoke with Kay to learn more about his career, competition experience, and how Nucleus Coffee Tools played a role in his success.

Hey Kay! Please tell us about how you started working in the coffee industry, and about your coffee career to date.

I’ve been working in coffee for 13 years. Before my first job in coffee, I had some friends who were baristas and roasters that shared specialty coffee with me, and I was so amazed by the difference in what I was tasting that I had to learn more. The impact of someone sharing specialty coffee with me is something that’s really motivated me to try and do the same for others.

What made you first want to compete in coffee competitions?

I was fortunate to work at several shops that either fielded competitors or were close to local competitors, so I was aware of competitions early on. When I first competed, my only goal was to learn and push myself as much as possible, and I learned that competition was such a good avenue for that, but also to be in a community of people doing the same.

Please tell us about your competition routine for the 2025 US Barista Championship.

Going back to my origins in some way, I was inspired by the Lego building blocks I used to (and sometimes still) play with. I always loved how I could be creative and build different things with the same pieces, and I wanted to share that through the coffees in my presentation. This year, I competed with Nestor Lasso’s Ombligon from El Diviso in Colombia, and Jamison Savage’s Geisha from Finca Deborah in Panama.

This year, you used the NCD Pulse distribution tool in your performance. How did this tool impact the expression of your coffee, and why did you choose to use it?

I think distribution is one of the most important things for espresso quality, and consistent and accurate distribution is so important on stage. I trialled the Pulse with and alongside different methods, and really appreciated the consistency and quality of espresso it helped me make.

Which Pulse Vibration settings on the NCD Pulse did you use for your coffees? 

I used the high setting for all of my coffees in my presentation, partly because I went with fewer spins of the Pulse, but also because I was using a higher dose in the basket. For my espresso preparation, I combined the El Diviso and Finca Deborah, so I really wanted to make sure the pulse vibration would help homogenize those different densities.

Is there anything special about your coffee or routine that you’d like to share, which you may not have time to share on stage?

There’s always so much more you’d like to share, whether it’s all of the hard work that goes into each coffee, or different decisions you make as a competitor! I would have liked to speak more about the espresso preparation and how we decided on the ratios we did, but as a team, we knew that we needed to let the results speak for themselves in the cup.

Please add anything else you believe to be important/relevant, or that you wish to share with the Nucleus Coffee Tools community:

It’s great to get to use these tools that are born out of innovations from the competition stage, and I’m excited to see how these innovations continue to make their way to more consumers and specialty coffee enthusiasts.

For those looking to learn more about the NCD Pulse, join the Bombora Coffee + Water Supplies at Counter Culture Coffee (NYC) for a special event in Manhattan, New York City on March 26, 2025.

This event ‘Re-PITA-ble Extraction: Repeatable Results with the NCD Pulse‘ will provide the opportunity to taste and test the NCD Pulse, experiencing how Pulse Vibration and advanced distribution technology can enhance both consistency and flavour.

Learn more and reserve your spot here.