Barista Magazine

DEC 2014 - JAN 2015

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F O A M : N E W S PHOTOS BY DAN GENTILE CUP OF EXCELLENCE CELEBRATES 100TH COMPETITION IN BRAZIL IF YOU'RE A COFFEE FARMER selling your beans on the commodity market, you'll cash in at just over $2 per pound. Win the Cup of Excellence (COE), and you're looking at a payday that's 30 times that amount. So if you're a quality-focused farmer and you don't even make the first round, it's understandable that you'd be upset. The farmer that the international jury visited on the first night of the COE in Brazil—the famed coffee competition's 100 th event, which took place in October—was very upset. After graciously welcoming the judges to the 300-hectacre co-op he oversees in the mountainous Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, it quickly became clear that the farmer had taken his exclusion personally. As his voice rose explaining his pride in his coffee, the judges politely changed the subject to harvest- ing methods and varieties, suddenly very interested in his experimental methods of wet processing. They looked like they could use a drink of something much stronger than coffee. This type of reaction might seem grudging if the COE were just a competition, but it's come to represent much more than a one-time payday. For the winners, it's entry into an exclusive club that leads to farm visits from industry leaders, direct-trade contracts, and a place on the radar of roasters around the world. For the larger Brazilian coffee economy, it's an influx of million of dollars a year. And for the consumer, it's a rising tide lifting the overall quality of specialty coffee around the world. The contest works something like a cross between the Olympics and the Oscars. Farmers submit their most prized microlots to be judged by a national jury, then once the cream has been separated from the crop, an international panel of industry icons descends on the country for a week of rigorous taste-testing, presentations, farm tours, and bottomless trays of hors d'oeuvres. For the 100 th iteration of the COE taking place in Brazil, the judging panel was an invite-only group of heavy hitters dubbed "The Dream Team." The Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE), which oversees the COE, also invited a select cast of international journalists, of which I was one. The official cocktail of the competition was the caipirinha, of which there were many. Since many of the veteran judges have been attending COE competitions since its founding in 2002, the mood at night was much like a family reunion. The days, however, were all business. The 20 judges represented the most finely tuned palates from 10 different countries, each with his or her own cupping styles. If they're the Dream Team, their cupping quirks are the equivalent of Jordan's tongue-wagging during a dunk. Will Young of Australia's Campos Coffee rips into the coffees, jerking his head and swallowing much of the coffee in the process. Geoff Watts of Intelligentsia sips quietly with a lower pitch and a slow, fluid motion. Bill Swoope of Pittsburgh's Coffee Tree Roasters makes a quick and hungry slurp, like he's enjoying a bowl of hot soup. Joe Hsu of Taiwan's Orsir Coffee Co. aerates the coffee with a high-pitched zip followed by a sharp choking sound. Hidetaka Hayashi of Japan's Hayashi Coffee Institute thrusts his whole body up like he's been startled awake from a deep sleep. Listen to them all at once, and the cacophony is like a forest of very caffeinated cicadas. The daily cuppings were followed by discussion sessions in which the judges reveal their scores by show of hands, and explain the nuances behind their decisions. An average rating of 85 or higher earns the COE seal, but only the 10 highest-scoring coffees will make it to the final cupping table. In addition to scores, the head juror records notes on flavor, body, and acidity, which will be used in describing the coffee at auction. Several judges expressed their frustrations with the trend of heavy-handed tasting notes in specialty-coffee marketing, but that didn't stop the discussions from turning into a wild buffet of flavor observations: passion fruit, cocoa powder, eucalyptus, kiwi, sweet apple, red wine, confectionary sugar, apricot, caramel. Although no one waxed poetic about coffee tasting like a naked mulatto woman running across the beach at sunset (an actual comment from a pre- vious year), the fervor with which the coffees were described and debated showed just how much mental lifting goes into the process. By the end of the week, the judges had tasted more than 1,000 cups of coffee, but the consensus was that the final day of judging was when things really got fun. Before the last round, retiring COE executive director Susie Spindler gave an inspirational speech worthy of an Top photo: Dutch barista trainer and Holland's multi-year lae art champion Esther Maasdam examines coffee-processing equipment at a farm in the Matas de Minas region. Below: Carlos Sergio Sanglard won the COE in 2003, and this year, he accepted the sixth- place award for his son who runs Fazenda Criciuma in the municipality of Araponga. 18 barista magazine

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