Some of the coffee world’s most discerning palettes came together in the heart of Brazil’s coffee belt on Friday to judge which brews in the world’s top grower are best for an expanding specialty market.
After hours of painstaking swilling, spitting and note making this week, judges at the Brazilian round of the international Cup of Excellence competition whittled the field down to 11 finalists from 56 entries.
The judges said the quality of Brazilian coffee had improved this year despite a wet harvest period that spoiled large quantities of produce in the world’s top grower.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“I honestly think the quality is much better this year. A lot of people told me quality would be lower because of the rains, but the top-tier coffees are presenting much better characteristics than in other years,” chief judge Erwin Mierisch said.
Cup of Excellence, sponsored in Brazil by the export promotion agency APEX, holds annual competitions to seek South and Central America’s best produce. It aims to expand the market for high quality coffee to give growers the incentive to produce better beans.
Begun a decade ago to counter the perception that Brazil had little to offer beyond its large supply of bulk coffee, it has spread to other producers in the region. East African nation Rwanda now also takes part.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Judges paced up and down with silver spoons, sampling the line of coffees, each of which had been roasted for the same time and at the same temperature and ground in a machine cleaned repeatedly to avoid contamination. Their faces gave nothing away as they made notes in silence before moving on to the next sample.
“I immediately spotted one which was outstanding. I gave it a 97 score,” out of a possible 100, said Vytautas Kratulis, director of Sviezia Kava, a roaster in Lithuania after the cupping process ended.
He also preferred this year’s coffees over last year’s. Still, he said he expected quality coffee would be in shorter supply in his country this year and at higher costs. The global economic crisis has hit Baltic states particularly hard, making Lithuanian coffee drinkers reluctant to pay premium prices.
Judges drifted out of the sampling room, mouths tired after forcefully drawing coffees dozens of times from the spoon with loud rasps, and congregated to discuss the qualities of each entry.
Numbers eight and 11 emerged as two potential winners. Judges compared their flavors to fruits like pineapple or red berries, while others were more often likened to chocolate or savory flavors like butter.
Judges laughed as one peer described a coffee as having a “taco” taste and another’s acidity as “polite, not aggressive.”
Coffee number eight emerged a fraction of a point ahead of 11 at the award ceremony on Friday night. The grower, Candido Rosa, was from Bahia in the northeast, a hotter, drier state than where most of the moisture-loving trees grow in Brazil.
He was presented with a plaque made with coffee beans.
Japanese coffee roaster Yuko Itoi, who has traveled to other rounds of the contest in Nicaragua, Colombia, Bolivia and Guatemala as well as Brazil this year, said the Cup of Excellence label was increasingly recognized back at home.
“Little by little, we can now see Cup of Excellence coffee in famous department stores and coffee stores,” she said.
Japan is often one of the main buyers in the online auctioning of the winning and runner up coffees in the Brazilian round, which will take place on Jan. 19.
Itoi said Japanese consumers had a soft spot for Brazilian coffee, even though not an elite origin like Colombia or Guatemala, because their countrymen had helped make Brazil into the world’s biggest producer.
“For Japan, Brazil coffee has a very special position because we immigrated 100 years ago” to farm it in Brazil, she said.
NO WORK, CLASS: President William Lai urged people in the eastern, southern and northern parts of the country to be on alert, with Typhoon Kong-rey approaching Typhoon Kong-rey is expected to make landfall on Taiwan’s east coast today, with work and classes canceled nationwide. Packing gusts of nearly 300kph, the storm yesterday intensified into a typhoon and was expected to gain even more strength before hitting Taitung County, the US Navy’s Joint Typhoon Warning Center said. The storm is forecast to cross Taiwan’s south, enter the Taiwan Strait and head toward China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The CWA labeled the storm a “strong typhoon,” the most powerful on its scale. Up to 1.2m of rainfall was expected in mountainous areas of eastern Taiwan and destructive winds are likely
KONG-REY: A woman was killed in a vehicle hit by a tree, while 205 people were injured as the storm moved across the nation and entered the Taiwan Strait Typhoon Kong-rey slammed into Taiwan yesterday as one of the biggest storms to hit the nation in decades, whipping up 10m waves, triggering floods and claiming at least one life. Kong-rey made landfall in Taitung County’s Chenggong Township (成功) at 1:40pm, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The typhoon — the first in Taiwan’s history to make landfall after mid-October — was moving north-northwest at 21kph when it hit land, CWA data showed. The fast-moving storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 184kph, with gusts of up to 227kph, CWA data showed. It was the same strength as Typhoon Gaemi, which was the most
Air and rail traffic around Taiwan were disrupted today while power cuts occurred across the country as Typhoon Kong-rey, predicted to make landfall in eastern Taiwan this afternoon, continued edging closer to the country. A total of 241 passenger and cargo flights departing from or arriving at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport were canceled today due to the typhoon, Taoyuan International Airport Corp said. As of 9:30am, 109 inbound flights, 103 outbound flights and 29 cargo flights had been canceled, the company said. Taiwan Railway Corp also canceled all express trains on its Western Trunk Line, Eastern Trunk Line, South-Link Line and attached branches
Typhoon Kong-rey is forecast to make landfall in eastern Taiwan this afternoon and would move out to sea sometime overnight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 9am today, Kong-rey's outer rim was covering most of Taiwan except for the north. The storm's center was 110km east of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost tip, and moving northwest at 28kph. It was carrying maximum sustained winds near its center of 184kph, and gusts of up to 227kph, the CWA said. At a news conference this morning, CWA forecaster Chu Mei-lin (朱美霖) said Kong-rey is moving "extremely fast," and is expected to make landfall between