Cup of Excellence (CoE) and Asociación Colombiana para la excelencia del café (ASECC) have announced the 22 winners for the 2022 CoE competition.
The CoE-winning coffees represent seven varieties, five regions, four processes and two Presidential Awards. The top three coffees, which won the Comandante ‘Top Farm’ trophy grinder, are all Gesha variety.
The first-place winner, a washed Gesha from La Bohemia produced by Carlos Alberto Belalcázar scored 90.64 points.
“My adoptive son won second place in 2021. When he tried my coffee he insisted that I should participate in the Cup of Excellence this year. But since I don’t have internet I didn’t think it would be possible for me to participate, however, I investigated and it turned out to be very easy and I was able to submit my coffee in the competition,” says Carlos Alberto Belalcázar.
“We have made a great effort to do all the processes of the farm by the book and we have been working on quality for more than 20 years. So this is a great reward for our effort.”
This year, 258 producers from nine different states representing 261 coffee samples and 21 different varieties, entered the competition.
Another highlight was the diversity of the national jury backgrounds working along the value chain including producers and processors, quality control managers, educators and roasters.
“It was an honour to coordinate such a collaborative event which objectives are to benefit farmers and highlight new origins, link producers and roasters, and promote the extraordinary coffees from each country that participates in CoE,” says Emilio Bonnet, Executive Director of ASECC.
The 22 winning lots, finalised by a total of 12 international jurists representing eight countries on a Global Coffee Center team led by Head Judge Paul Songer, will be auctioned online on 22 November 2022.
Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE) offers sample sets of the winning coffees until 1 November to purchase before the auction. Interested parties must join ACE as a member to register for samples and auctions. ACE is also organising buying groups for the auction.
For more information about the winning coffees and auction details, visit https://allianceforcoffeeexcellence.org/colombia-2022/