Cup of Excellence
Since its development in the late 1990’s, primarily through the efforts of coffee greats George Howell and Susie Spindler, the Cup of Excellence programme has established itself not only as a pioneer of quality coffee and farmer-roaster-consumer relationships, but also as the most respected competition in the world for speciality coffee. It’s right up there with the World Barista Championships as the Oscars of the coffee world.
The very first Cup of Excellence competition was held in Brasil in 1999 and has developed to encompass 9 key coffee producing countries in Latin America and Africa, including Bolivia, Brasil, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Rwanda.
Within the Grumpy Mule Team, we have our own Cup of Excellence jury member serving as a UK representative. Damian has now been serving on Cup of Excellence juries since Nicaragua in 2004.
See our current range of Cup of Excellence award winning coffees.
Damian says: “Cup of Excellence competitions always unearth some of the best coffees I’ve ever tasted, and whilst a week of intense cupping makes you want to crawl away into a dark room sometimes, it’s worth it just for the privilege of tasting these amazing coffees and attending the awards ceremony at the end of the week.”
Each producer country in the programme hosts an annual Cup of Excellence competition, where coffee growers from that origin are encouraged to enter a batch of their finest coffee from that harvest. Any grower, whether a smallholder farmer or owner of a large estate, can submit a coffee sample and each sample is treated on an equal standing. (In Rwanda, growers pool their coffees together to submit samples as the quantities they harvest individually can be very small.)
The winning coffees are chosen by a select group of national and international professional coffee cuppers (tasters) and are blind tasted at least five different times during the competition process. Only coffees that continuously score high enough are allowed to move forward in the competition.
Those scoring over 84 points out of 100 in the final rounds are awarded the prestigious Cup of Excellence award and are sold to the highest bidder during an internet auction, generating much higher prices for the farmer than they would receive elsewhere. Generally speaking, this means that everyone benefits. The record price paid for a Cup of Excellence coffee currently stands at around $80 / lb, in contrast to the market price which can hover around the $1.00 / lb mark.
The buyer of that coffee can then roast and sell it as a Cup of Excellence award winning coffee and their customers know it is of the highest quality. Winning coffees are ranked in points order, so Lot 1 is the competition winner and there are usually around 25 – 30 winners in all for each individual origin.
In addition, the programme teaches valuable skills at origin such as cupping coffee (vital so that a producer knows why their coffee tastes like it does and how to make improvements), roasting and how to harvest and prepare the best coffee.
The programme also has a knock-on success. Farmers see their neighbours entering and winning an award and next year they want to take part too – so they work on their coffee that little bit harder.
The proceeds from the auction sale of award winning coffees not only enable farmers to re-invest in their farms but also to support their families. Farmers often develop lasting, long term relationships with roasters as a result of their success.
For more information on this fantastic program please visit www.cupofexcellence.org.
