Inside Amsterdam’s 2025 Coffeeshop Awards

The 2025 Amsterdam Coffeeshop Awards brought together cannabis lovers from across the industry—including coffeeshops, staff, brand representatives and regular patrons—for a weekend of tastings, meetups and shop visits across the city. Organized by AudioKush, the three-day event, held November 14-16, has grown steadily since its launch in 2021 and now serves as an annual record of where Amsterdam’s coffeeshop community stands and how it continues to grow.

To gain a better understanding of the cultural significance of the Amsterdam Coffeeshop Awards, it is helpful to examine how Amsterdam’s coffeeshops originated. In the 1970s, the city started allowing small-scale cannabis sales under controlled conditions. This wasn’t legalization, but it wasn’t an underground loophole either. Rather, it was a practical harm-reduction strategy that eventually shaped Amsterdam’s identity as one of the world’s most recognized cannabis destinations.

For many international visitors, especially those from countries with strict laws, coffeeshops were the first place they saw cannabis handled as a normal part of daily life. Customers could sit down, read a menu, and ask staff about different strains—something that didn’t exist anywhere else at the time. As the years passed, coffee shops became an integral part of the city’s cultural landscape, influenced by music, art, hospitality, food and nightlife. They also became an early example for policymakers looking to understand what a regulated cannabis environment could look like.

The Amsterdam Coffee Shop Awards draw on that history. Rather than simply naming winners, they aim to recognize the people and businesses that continue to shape a culture built over decades.

The awards are split into two sections with distinct judging methods. The Consumer Choice categories are decided by public voting, giving a clear picture of what regular coffee shop customers and visitors value most across the city. For the Industry Awards, over the course of a week, a panel of 25 industry professionals independently samples and scores the city’s best flower, hash, pre-rolls, edibles, coffeeshops and concentrates. Each product is independently evaluated in a blind taste test, with no branding or identifying information provided to the judges, ensuring that assessments focus solely on quality. Together, these two approaches reflect both the community’s preferences and the standards recognized by industry professionals.

The awards gala was held on Docks 1, a smoker-friendly boat cruise and Amsterdam’s largest floating venue, which capped off a three-day stretch of meet-ups, coffeeshop visits, tastings and late-night parties. According to Russell D, marketing director for Amsterdam Coffee Shop Awards, a total of 200 industry professionals were aboard the awards cruise. By the time the winners were announced, most people in the room had already shared a joint, a conversation, or at least a handshake somewhere else in the city.

Now, let’s take a look at this year’s full list of winners.

These categories were decided entirely by public vote; the customers, locals and visitors who give Amsterdam’s coffeeshops their character.

These awards focus strictly on what’s in the jar, not the noise behind it.