Illycaffé has announced Jumboor Estate as the winner of the Ernesto Illy International Coffee Award 2021.
Jumboor Estate was voted Best of the Best, while Proyecto Lift Olopita in Guatemala was voted Coffee Lover’s Choice, by an independent panel of international culinary and coffee experts.
Jumboor Estate is located in the plateaus of India’s northern Coorg district, at an elevation of 950 to 1000 metres in an area of rich organic soils.
Established in 1870, this 390-hectare estate only cultivates Arabica coffee and produces ‘Jumboor Gold’, a high-quality Yellow Bourbon Arabica variety.
Chairman of illycaffè Andrea illy says this is the first time that India won the Ernesto Illy International Coffee Award.
“I am very happy that the prestigious ‘Best of the Best’ award was assigned to a product that is grown in a virtuous manner, demonstrating the potential of this agricultural model as a way to achieve sustainable quality,” he says.
Every year, illycaffè’s quality lab selects the best batches of coffee based on quality and sustainability parameters.
The countries that stood out during the 2020/2021 harvest were Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, and Nicaragua.
The best three producers from each country made it to the final round of the Ernesto Illy International Coffee Award 2021, where each national winner became one of nine finalists in the international competition.
An independent panel of international experts, chefs, and food critics conducted a blind tasting of the nine finalists, sampling various preparations – espresso, moka, drip, and filter coffee – and chose a winner on the basis of the richness and complexity of the bouquet, the elegance and balance of flavours, and the intensity of the aroma.
The Ernesto Illy International Coffee Award ceremony, now at its sixth edition and named after the son of illycaffè’s founder, celebrates and rewards illy’s best growers for the attention to sustainable quality they bring to their work every day, and to renew the company’s commitment to improve the lives of producers and bring to life the dream of offering the best coffee to the world.
The virtual ceremony can be viewed at https://eiica2021.illy.com/.
