2022: Jibbi Little — The Thunder from Down Under
She walked into Vancouver with a reputation and a bypass technique that nobody could match. Jibbi Little became the 2022 World Aeropress Champion and changed how competitors think about dilution.
2022: Jibbi Little — The Thunder from Down Under
“The Aeropress is the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter if you’re a world barista champion or someone who just really loves coffee. The plastic tube does not care.” — The spirit of the 2022 championship, captured in every round Jibbi Little brewed
The Champion
Jibbi Little is Australian by citizenship and Thai by heritage, and she competed with the flag of both countries behind her. By the time she arrived at the 2022 World Aeropress Championship in Vancouver, Canada, she was already known in coffee circles. Not famous — the Aeropress Championship does not produce celebrities in the conventional sense — but known. People who followed competition coffee knew her name. People who didn’t were about to.
Her nickname — “The Thunder from Down Under” — was coined by the competition announcers and stuck because it was accurate. Her energy on stage was kinetic. She moved through her routine with the confidence of someone who had brewed this coffee a hundred times and knew exactly what it would do. The other competitors watched her rounds. You could see them recalculating.
The Stage
Vancouver in December is wet, grey, and about eight degrees Celsius — weather that makes you want to hold a warm cup of coffee in both hands and not let go. The 2022 championship was held at a venue that had been transformed into a coffee arena: stage lights, a live audience, a giant screen displaying close-up shots of every pour and press.
The competition had grown. What started in a barn in Norway was now a legitimate international event. The 2022 field included competitors from more than fifty countries. The diversity of approaches was staggering — different grind sizes, water temperatures, filter configurations, and stirring patterns — all directed at the same goal: the best cup of Aeropress coffee in the world.
The Coffee
Little brewed a washed Ethiopian — a choice that connected her, across years and continents, to Tuomas Merikanto the year before. But where Merikanto’s approach was methodical and precise, Little’s was dynamic. She used a coffee that rewarded boldness: a light-roasted Ethiopian with pronounced florals and citrus, the kind of coffee that can taste thin and sour if underextracted or bitter and hollow if pushed too far.
Her recipe was designed to extract as much sweetness as possible without crossing the line. The key was her bypass technique — the practice of brewing a concentrated coffee and then adding water to reach the desired strength. Bypass is common in Aeropress brewing. What made Little’s approach unusual was the precision of it. She knew exactly how much water to add, at exactly what temperature, to achieve exactly the balance she wanted.
The Method
Little’s 2022 winning recipe:
- Dose: 18 grams
- Grind: Medium — coarser than espresso, finer than French press
- Water: 93°C (199°F)
- Position: Standard
- Brew water: 200 grams
- Bypass water: 50 grams at 80°C, added after pressing
- Contact time: 2 minutes total
She pre-wet the filter, assembled the Aeropress, and added her coffee. She poured 100 grams of water in a circular motion, waited 30 seconds, then added the remaining 100 grams. At 1:30 she inserted the plunger and began a slow, deliberate press — about 45 seconds from start to hiss. The concentrated brew was approximately 170 grams. She then added 50 grams of water at 80°C — warm enough to integrate, cool enough not to shock the extraction — bringing the total to 220 grams.
The bypass was the signature. By brewing a concentrate and diluting with cooler water, she achieved a cup with full body and pronounced sweetness without the bitterness that often accompanies high extraction. It was a technique that required confidence — you had to trust that your concentrate was good enough to survive dilution.
What the Judges Tasted
The judges described “intense florals,” “stone fruit sweetness,” and “a finish that went on longer than expected.” One judge noted that the cup “evolved as it cooled” — a sign of a well-extracted coffee, where complexity reveals itself across temperatures rather than collapsing into monotony. The body was described as “juicy” — a word that appears when acidity and sweetness are in balance, when the coffee has weight without heaviness.
The Contour Pairing: Ethiopia Guji Kercha
Little’s recipe — medium grind, high extraction, deliberate bypass — demands a coffee with the structure to survive concentration and the complexity to reward dilution. Our Ethiopia Guji Kercha (natural process, blueberry jam and dark chocolate notes, creamy body) was built for this.
The natural process gives Guji Kercha an intensity that washed Ethiopians sometimes lack. When you concentrate it through Little’s method, the blueberry becomes almost syrupy — a fruit bomb in the best sense. The dark chocolate backbone keeps it grounded. When you add the bypass water, the coffee opens up: the blueberry separates into distinct notes of fresh fruit and jam, the chocolate recedes to a clean finish, and the creamy body carries it all.
Brew It Yourself: The Little Method with Ethiopia Guji Kercha
- Heat brew water to 93°C (199°F). Heat a separate 50 grams to 80°C for bypass.
- Rinse a paper filter in the cap with hot water. Discard rinse water.
- Weigh 18 grams of Ethiopia Guji Kercha. Grind medium — slightly coarser than table salt.
- Assemble Aeropress in standard position. Add coffee.
- Pour 100 grams of water. Stir gently for 5 seconds. Wait until 0:30.
- Pour remaining 100 grams of water. Total: 200 grams.
- At 1:30, insert plunger. Press slowly — aim for a 45-second press. Stop at the hiss.
- Add 50 grams of bypass water at 80°C. Stir gently.
- Taste. This cup should be big, juicy, and impossible to put down.
Next in the series: Tay Wipvasutt, the Thai champion who added coffee halfway through the brew and changed what people thought the Aeropress could do.