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Grower Cândido Vladimir Ladeia Rosa, along with top four award winners, helped put Bahia state on the specialty coffee map. (Photo by Joel Shuler courtesy BSCA)
Cup of Excellence 2014
Grower Cândido Vladimir Ladeia Rosa, along with top four award winners, helped put Bahia state on the specialty coffee map. (Photo by Joel Shuler courtesy BSCA)
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Head judge Silvio Leite was one of the coffee professionals who helped to make COE a reality. (Photo by Joel Shuler courtesy BSCA)
Cup of Excellence 2014
Head judge Silvio Leite was one of the coffee professionals who helped to make COE a reality. (Photo by Joel Shuler courtesy BSCA)
The 100th Cup of Excellence (COE) revealed a Brazil of small farms, hand-picked cherries, and superior washed coffees with cupping scores of 90+ from known growing regions. The big surprise was a sweep of the top five awards by growers in Bahia, which is not a traditional coffee producing region. Auction prices topped $50 per pound.
Grower Cândido Vladimir Ladeia Rosa, from Chácara Ouro Verde, located in Piatã city (Bahia) in Chapada Diamantina received the top score of 94.05 points. This is the second time since 2009 that Rosa has taken top honors.
Cuppings took place at Viçosa, Minas Gerais, at the Universidade Federal de Viçosa (Federal University of Viçosa).
Geoff Watts, v.p. of coffee and green coffee buyer at Intelligentsia in Chicago, Ill. said, “I’ve been surprised by the quality that we found. I’ve been in several different Brazil competitions [...], but it has been almost 10 years since I’ve been here for COE and the difference between the quality that was available then and the quality we found now is dramatic. I would say on average the coffee has gone up in quality by 30%.”
Brazilian judge Elias Batista Generoso said the most exotic coffee that he found had phosphoric acid “which is not very usual for Brazil.”
Brazil is the origin of the Cup of Excellence which was first conceived 15 years ago as a means of introducing specialty grade coffee to the world. The intent was to showcase exceptional coffee for international buyers who didn’t believe that a commodity country such as Brazil could consistently produce fine coffees.
Susie Spindler, one of the founders and executive director of the Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE), recalled that buyers in “Europe and the US mainly, would not believe that Brazil could produce anything other than commercial coffee… even if those coffees were on a cupping table and selected hands down favorites in a blind cupping.
“The US and most Europeans buyers wouldn’t pay a premium primarily because they thought these fine coffees were one-time shot, that wasn’t repeatable,” she explains.
COE’s first competition in 1999 in Brazil was funded by the Brazil Specialty Coffee Association (BSCA) and the International Coffee Organization (ICO).
The idea of promoting specialty coffee through blind cuppings dates to 1997, according to Vanusia Nogueira, BSCA’s executive director. Five countries, including Brazil, were chosen for The Gourmet Project, a partnership of ICO and the United Nations designed to stimulate coffee development.
“Some coffee farms were chosen to receive technical support. Susie Spindler and George Howell were both invited to Brazil to start their work,” said Nogueira. The Gourmet Project ran from 1996 until 1999 and was a huge success. “The project was designed to not only increase coffee quality, but to get more money to the farmers,” explains Spindler. Small producers improved their crops and buyers paid higher prices. However project funding was limited. To prevent the cuppings from vanishing BSCA financed the effort, calling the award The Best of Brazil until 2000 when other countries showed interest in having this project in their lands too, says Vanusia.
Guatemala was the first to take part in cuppings, then Nicaragua (2002), El Salvador (2003), Honduras (2004), Colombia (2005), Costa Rica (2007), Rwanda (2008), Mexico (2012), Burundi (2012), and Bolivia (2004-2009). The program was named the Cup of Excellence. It was founded by Spindler, George Howell, and Silvio Leite. ACE, a nonprofit, began managing COE competitions around the world.
COE pioneered a new appreciation of specialty coffee worldwide and made it convenient for buyers to purchase these coffees via the internet. Modeling their efforts on the success of eBay, COE’s team developed its own auction platform to get top prices for the precious coffees discovered during competitions.
The process of evaluation also changed. The Specialty Coffee of Association of America (SCAA) developed a 0-100 scale and evaluation form that was adopted at the very beginning of the project, but the judges faced a technical challenge. Silvio Leite, the head judge since the program’s creation, explained that an evaluation of acidity wasn’t included on the SCAA form.
“We didn’t know how to evaluate acidity,” remembered Leite. “So, during that time, we just described whether the acidity was positive or negative. George Howell and I redesigned the COE sheet and, nowadays, this quality standard is used around the world,” he explains.
The 100th edition reunited international buyers and participants who had been involved since the beginning. In addition to identifying the best coffee in Brazil, it was a reunion that stirred lots of memories. Unlike past years there were 12 scoring judges, representing 10 countries. The COE competition was conducted in three rounds: pre-selection, national jury, and international jury. Coffees under 85 points were eliminated.
Live online auctions have generated $43 million for farmers according to Spindler with 83% of proceeds returned to farmers and 17% financing host country coffee associations. Bidders span the entire global coffee community of roaster/retailers and importers. Top prices ranged from a high of $2.60 in 1999 to a 2005 high of $49.75 per pound ($109.45 per kilo). The average price/lb. spans a range from $1.38 per pound in 2000 to $8.80 in 2012.
After a week of intense cuppings (each coffee is cupped at least five times) and short trips to the fields, the winners were announced. The 2014 Brazil Early Harvest was very particular since a non-traditional coffee producer state had the five top scored lots: Bahia. Another curious fact is that most of washed coffee from 21 producers had scores greater than 85.
First-place winner Ladeia Rosa received $50.20 per lb., earning $106,223 at auction Nov. 26. Finishing second was Antonio Rigno de Oliveira from Chácara São Judas Tadeu. His coffee scored 93.36 points earning $29.20 per lb. at auction. In third place, and the only woman in the top five: Zora Yonara Macedo Pina Oliveira, from Chácara Tijuco, with 92.26 points ($15.65 lb). She is followed by Eulino José de Novais, from Fazenda Santa Bárbara, with 90.14 points ($10.90 lb). The university setting gave judges and competition guests an opportunity to talk to Brazilian coffee scientists and to student researchers. Participants also toured coffee farms with different approaches to cultivation in the mountains near Viçosa.
Learn more at: www.allianceforcoffeeexcellence.org/en/
Cup Of Excellence Judges 2014
Cup of Excellence Judges
Back row, standing from left to right
Hidetaka Hayashi (Hayashi Coffee), Andreas Hertzberg (Solberg and Hansen), Gerard Meauxsoone (Cafes Meo), Thomas Pulpan (Kaffebrenneriet), Will Young (Campos), Jason Long (Cafe imports).
Middle row, standing from left to right
Shinji Sekini (Wataru & Co. Ltd.), Joe Hsu (Orsir Coffee ), Salvador Sans (Cafes El Magnifico), unidentified non-judge,Kentaro Maruyama (Maruyama Coffee), Bill Swoope (Coffee Tree), Susie Spindler (ACE), Keita Matsumoto (Wataru & Co.), Pil Hoon - careca mais para trás - (Cafe Libre), Geoff Watts (Intelligentsia), Stephen Hurst - Loiro mais atrás à direita - (Mercanta Coffee Hunters)
Front row, sitting - from left to right
Yun Son Lee (TERAROSA - Haksan Co.Ltd), Shuji Akimoto (Kyokuto Fadie Corporation), Yoshi Kato (Bontain Coffee), Silvio Leite (Hedge Judge - BSCA / ACE), Elias Generoso (3 Irmãos), Gilmar Reis Cabral (Coopasv), Christian Pontes (SMC), Yuko Yamada Itoi (Times Club), Vanusia Nogueira (BSCA)