The Ernesto Illy International Coffee Awards has proclaimed Brazil as the winning country for the Best of the Best Award.
The eighth edition of the awards, named after the son of illycaffè’s founder, celebrates the work the company has done with coffee farmers in order to produce sustainable coffee.
illycaffè Chairman Andrea Illy presented the award to Josè Eduardo Dominicale at the ceremony which took place at the New York Public Library.
“The victory of the Brazilian coffee coming from regenerative agriculture – chosen blindly among the nine best coffees in the world – fills me with joy,” says Illy.
The awards are assigned by an independent panel of nine experts who examine the best batches from the 2022-23 harvest through a blind tasting of nine coffees from the nine finalist countries.
“After more than 25 years of never-ending and tireless work by our team of agronomists and the University of Coffee, the leap has finally happened thanks to regenerative agriculture, which we decided to develop in 2018 for the benefits it brings to the environment and everyone’s health,” Illy says.
Each batch of coffee was analysed by illycaffè’s quality control labs and scored in terms of richness, aromatic complexity, aroma, elegance and balance of its flavour intensity.
As part of the ceremony, Guatemala’s Finca Danilandia di Luis Arimany Mondonico won the Coffee Lovers’ Choice Award.
This award was assigned by a panel of consumers who carried out blind taste tests of the coffee samples prior to the event.
