A Brazilian coffee has won the Ernesto Illy International Coffee Award 2024, which celebrates excellence in coffee sustainability.
The international jury gathered in New York, United States, on 12 November to taste and evaluate the coffees, which were selected by illycaffè’s laboratories based on rigorous quality and sustainability criteria throughout the 2023/2024 harvest.
Fazenda Serra do Boné, owned by Matheus Lopes Sanglard, won the Best of the Best award with a coffee produced using the ‘despulpado technique’, which is said to maximise sugars and aromas.
The prize was awarded by an independent international jury of nine experts who chose the best among the winners of the nine single-origins that make up the recipe of the unique illy blend: Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Nicaragua and Rwanda.
The SMS Cluster ECOM of Nicaragua won the Coffee Lovers’ Choice award, voted for by consumers who blind-tasted the samples in the weeks leading up to the event.
“For the second year in a row, a Brazilian company that adopts regenerative practices has given us the best coffee in the world,” says illycaffé Chairman Andrea Illy.
“In the Fazenda Serra do Bonè, the health of the soil, biodiversity, and water sources are preserved thanks to the use of organic fertilisers, biological control and the reuse of processing by-products. We are once again noticing important signs that confirm how regenerative agriculture is the right path towards a more resilient production capable of guaranteeing productivity and superior quality, of which coffee is the forerunner with the highest growth rates.”
The jury described Fazenda Serra do Boné’s award-winning coffee as “creamy, sweet, and full-bodied, with an elegant balance of fresh fruit aromas, caramel undertones, subtle hints of brown sugar, and a persistent chocolate finish with floral notes of jasmine – a beautifully complex coffee that perfectly embodies its Brazilian origin”.
In addition to the awards, the Ernesto Illy International Coffee Award facilitated global discussions on coffee sustainability.
Representatives from across the coffee supply chain gathered at the UN Headquarters for a roundtable discussion to address how to secure the future of coffee amid socio-economic and environmental threats across the supply chain.
The panel emphasised the need to enhance coffee cultivation resilience by transitioning to a regenerative model. A major focus was on establishing a US$10 billion public-private fund over the next decade, which will target smallholder coffee farmers in tropical regions heavily impacted by climate change.
