Excellence

Let the cupping begin

El Salvador pre screening

El optimismo

El Salvador is a long way from Cape Town, but exactly how far?  A bit of research yielded these numbers -the round trip is: 24086 miles, 69 Hours, 6 international flights.   Some might say  ‘That’s a long way to go and taste some coffees?’  To which I would reply ‘It’s worth it!’

These are not just any coffees. They are cup of excellence coffees! The Cup of Excellence is the most esteemed award given to a coffee.  The awards come from a strict competition that selects the very best coffee produced in that country for that particular year.  The winning coffees are chosen by a select group of national and international cuppers and are cupped at least five different times during the competition process.  Only coffees that continuously score high enough are allowed to move forward in the competition. The final winners are awarded the prestigious Cup of Excellence and sold to the highest bidder during an internet auction.  For the grower this can result in a premium of 10 to 15 times the fair trade price for coffee.

So, as you can imagine, when I received my invitation from Cup of Excellence to be an international juror in El Salvador I was elated. To be cupping some of the best coffees in the world with some of the best coffee professionals fires me up!

Also there’s an opportunity to visit coffee farms and see the growing and processing first hand.  For me, if you’re serious about roasting and blending then sooner or later you’re going to have to end up visiting a farm.  There’s some good information on the internet on the processes, but nothing like really meeting the people and scrabbling around amongst the trees.   I’m hoping it could lead to opportunities for more direct trade and relationships with farms.   Exciting stuff.  I’ll be posting photos and thoughts as the trip progresses.

Advertisement