In the fifth Peru Cup of Excellence (CoE) competition, Dwight Aguilar Masias of Nueva Alianza farm from the La Convencion province in the Cusco region has won first place with a score of 90.2 points.
“To me, this is an emotion. I know all the work that was done over the year; fertilization, harvesting, not sleeping, working 24 hours,” says Masias during the awards ceremony. “Thanks to coffee, I’m a champion again. This trophy is dedicated to Peru.”
Announced by the CoE and the Central Café & Cacao at the Awards ceremony in Qillabamba, Peru, Masias is also the country’s first two-time champion having won the 2018 CoE. He also placed 10th in the 2020 competition.
“Dwight’s two-time championship shows that Peruvian coffee is climbing positions in the specialty coffee industry. This win is the triumph of the entire Peruvian coffee community,” says Geni Fundes, General Manager of the Central Café & Cacao and General Coordinator of Cup of Excellence Peru 2021.
The second-place winner was Hugo Mariño Laura, also from the province of La Convencion in the Cusco region, who scored 90.08 points with his washed Geisha.
The third-place winner, José Elmer Tineo Mendoza, from the province of Jaén in the Cajamarca region achieved a score of 90 points with his natural Catuaí, Caturra, and Bourbón blend.
The competition saw 24 Cup of Excellence and 13 National Winner coffees, with three Presidential Awards given to producers whose coffees scored 90 points or above. Of the winning coffees, 17 were processed using a washed method and seven were natural.
Examining the varieties, 10 were Geishas, nine were blends, two were Bourbon Rojo, one was Bourbon, one was Caturra, and one was Castillo Amarillo. A majority of the winning CoE coffees came from the Cajamarca region, with a total of five Peruvian regions being represented.
A total of 238 samples entered the competition which were evaluated by a team of National jurists. Of these, 37 coffees were advanced to the international stage where Global Coffee Centers location in Germany, Norway, Japan, China South Korea, United States, and Taiwan evaluated the finalists.
Of these, the 24 coffees that had scores of 87 points or more were selected. There were 13 coffees that scored 85 points and above that also qualified for the National Winner auction.
The National Winners represents six Peruvian regions with a majority of these coffees also being of the Geisha variety. As with the CoE competition, the washed process dominated with 92.3 per cent of National Winners representing washed processing.
The competition was supported by the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Irrigation (Midagri), Prom-Peru, National Commission for Development and Life without Drugs (Devida), Provincial Municipality of La Convencion (Cusco), the Regional Government of Cusco, TechnoServe, USAID / Peru, SOS FAIM, Fogal, and Rikolto.
The Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE) is offering sample sets of the winning coffees to purchase before the auctions. Interested parties must join ACE as a member to register for samples and auctions.
The CoE Auction will take place on 2 December with the National Winner Auction taking place between the 29 November and 10 December.
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