Paprik Liu: What It Means to Brew in Canada

Paprik Liu is the 2026 Canadian Brewers Cup Champion. But when he talks about coffee, the conversation doesn't stay with the title for very long. He talks about learning, the people he has met along the way, the uncertainty that comes with every brew, and the fact that he still has a lot to figure out.

He doesn't seem particularly interested in being remembered for winning a championship. What matters more to him is what someone might take from his work and carry into their own life. For Paprik, coffee has become a way to keep learning, to respect other people, and to pay attention to what it feels like to be alive.

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At the time, he was also a university student. He liked learning, but didn't particularly like learning at school. He spent those years adapting to the way schools expected him to learn and trying to find his place within a group. Looking back, he doesn't think there was one particular moment outside coffee that shaped the way he brews today. 

Life and growing up have kept changing and shaping his character, and that character affects how he thinks and speaks, as well as what he can imagine. Those habits eventually become part of how he evaluates and brews coffee.

"I look forward to the next cup I brew. I feel calm and anxious, sometimes during the same brew, because I care about what the cup will become. I enjoy moving between those states because they make me feel alive," he says.

Coffee has also taught him respect. He respects people who work hard at their craft, as well as those who work hard to build a life they can enjoy. The more he learns, the more he sees what he doesn't know. Once you understand how little you know about your own field, he says, it becomes harder to look down on someone working in another.

Leaving coffee has never seriously crossed his mind since he chose it as a career. There are still goals he hasn't reached, and he hasn't become the person he wants to be in the field. He has more work to do.

There isn't a single first cup that Paprik can point to as the one that changed him, either. Coffee is more than a drink to him. Many cups have affected him, but he can't identify one as the first.

The same goes for competition. Winning may become the headline, but competing takes a lot out of you whether you win or not. Paprik doesn't expect people to remember his story. 

He only hopes that something he does might give one person some encouragement, or an idea they can use as they continue their own story.

Some of the people who have influenced Paprik most are not necessarily the people one might expect. They are the new baristas who arrive curious about coffee and ready to learn. 

He has trained some of them, but their sincerity and hopes for a future in coffee have continued to influence him in return. He was there to teach them, but he learned from them too.

That exchange has also shaped the way he understands respect. Coffee taught him to respect other people, and through that, he learned to respect himself. For Paprik, that became part of making peace with who he is, something he had to learn through experience rather than from a book, teacher or competition.

He doesn't pretend to understand himself completely. In fact, he doubts he ever will. He learns about himself simply by living, and even answering these questions has become part of that process. Some of his answers, he admits, are things he had never really thought through until being asked.

That same attention carries into the way he prepares coffee. If someone watched him brewing without knowing who he was, he would hope they noticed the care and attention he puts into the cup. 

More than that, he hopes they leave with a greater respect for coffee professionals. For those who love the work, each cup is prepared with care.

He also doesn't separate failure from hope. To Paprik, there isn't a particular smell that belongs to one and not the other. He cares about experiencing life, including all the feelings that come mixed together.

One of those moments can happen when someone visits his city by chance, orders his coffee, enjoys it and tells him so. The encouragement can mean a lot, especially when he knows the person may only be his guest once. 

He enjoys talking with them, knowing that the conversation itself cannot be recreated. He may use the same recipe again, but he cannot repeat that particular conversation or the moment that came with it.

That may explain why he doesn't try to balance competition and life. Competition gives him a clear score. Life doesn't. Rather than forcing the two to work in the same way, he approaches them differently, which keeps both fresh for him. He is still learning how to find balance in life.

Away from coffee and competition, he knows what his goal is. He doesn't need people to remember Paprik or remember his story. What matters more to him is that one person might take something useful from it and carry it into their own life. They don't even need to remember where it came from.

If he could make one final cup for anyone, living or no longer here, he wouldn't be able to choose just one person. Too many people matter to him. And before they took the first sip, he says he would simply tell them, "I am very happy to make this coffee for you."

Twenty years from now, he hopes that future Paprik will be grateful for one thing: that he continued doing what he believed was right, while paying attention to what it feels like to be alive.

Then there is one final question, one that Paprik says no interviewer has asked him before. Rather than answering it himself, he turns it back on the interviewer: keep asking it until someone gives you a great answer. He also thinks the questions were really good.

Photo: Paprik Liu doc.