20 years on: Is Cup of Excellence still relevant?

Here’s to year 20!! Mercanta has been participating in Alliance for Coffee Excellence’s Cup of Excellence program from the beginning and are ‘Lifetime Members’. Stephen Hurst explains why. Mercanta celebrated our twentieth anniversary in 2016, and it occurred to me that Cup of Excellence would celebrate their twentieth anniversary next year in 2019. Which got

On May 16-20, Mercanta North America’s John Curry attended the 2016 Guatemala Cup of Excellence (COE) International Jury as an observer. He shares his experiences.

We kicked off the week in style with the Taste of the Harvest Event, held on the evening of November 25th, 2014. Hosted by Mercanta, the Embassy of Brazil, the Brazilian Specialty Coffee Association, and The Specialty Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE), Taste of the Harvest was held the day before the Brazil Early Harvest Cup of Excellence auction and highlighted the top 10 coffees of 2014’s competition.

Arriving on the last flight Thursday the week before the international jury, I awoke to find myself sample roasting late harvest offer samples in our lab, before jet lag had time to set in we were off to Antigua visiting both long term partners and new that we work with in the area, Puerta Verde,

The under recognized region of Antioquia moved into the light with two farms making it to this year’s Colombian Cup of Excellence Auction. Antioquia has long been the little sister of Colombian coffee regions, with its produce being undiscovered by the rest of the world. Flavor profiles are unlike those from the rest of the

This August I had my first chance to take part in the Cup of Excellence programme, an opportunity that I have been very eager to experience. I arrived in Rwanda on the evening of 24th August very excited about getting to know more about this country and its coffees. There is only an open expanse

This May I was lucky enough to be accepted as part of the International Jury for the Guatemala Cup of Excellence 2012. Needless to say I was very excited to spend a week cupping some of the season’s best coffees from this fantastic origin country. We arrived in Guatemala City on the Sunday evening and

I feel very fortunate to have been able to be part of this year’s El Salvador Cup of Excellence International Jury and there is only one word to describe this year’s crop in El Salvador – exceptional! A total of 124 growers submitted their fruit to the Salvadoran Coffee Council for the first round of

The 2009 Cup of Excellence report made for interesting reading. Last year Mercanta was officially the biggest single buyer of COE in the world outside Asia. Statistical proof of our commitment to paying a premium for the world’s best coffees! Mercanta bought a total of 14 COE lots in 2009, topping the non-Asian chart of

This year’s Colombia field trip explored uncharted territory. Mercanta are very excited to have finally gained access to Nariño province in Colombia’s far south-west, out of bounds until recently due to security concerns. José made the trip to this very special region at the beginning of March and returned with some great new coffees. Not

Last month my friend Hugh Gilmartin asked me to contribute a guest blog to the SCAE website. I know all of you were hoping for someone other than me to write the next one – but I am back by unpopular demand! Where can I get the inspiration for this update? The Black Eyed Peas?

I have just returned from Brazil where I attended the 10th Brazil Cup of Excellence as one of the international jurors. I am not certain, but it may have also been my 10th Cup of Excellence jury and I must now have participated on 7 or 8 competitions in Brazil, 1 in Nicaragua, and 2

This year’s International Jury competition for the Colombia Cup of Excellence took place in the town of Pereira in the Risaralda region from 9th to 13th of March. In all, 374 lots were submitted in February to the pre-screening process from 12 different regions (Antioquia, Casanare, Cauca, Huila, Meta, Norte de Santander, Quindío, Risaralda, Santander,

We’ve long known about the sophisticated espresso culture scene ‘Down Under’. Some of the leading specialty roasters and retailers in Australia are now stepping up to explore Cup of Excellence coffees. Excellent reason to indulge in a cuppa By: Necia Wilden | March 05, 2009 What champagne is to sparkling wine, a Cup of Excellence

I arrived in Guatemala City on Saturday 3rd May with 2 main objectives; one was to visit and give our gratitude to our Guatemalan growers on behalf of our coffee roasting customers and the team at Mercanta the Coffee Hunters; the second was to take part in the International Jury at the Guatemala Cup of

This year, our annual Coffee Hunter Field Trip took Flo and me together with eight customers to Guatemala. This would to be our fourth Field Trip and we believe that these excursions are the single most important way to illustrate Mercanta’s unique way of doing business to our Specialty Coffee roaster customers. For the coffee

Excellence in a Cup: A competition promotes trade in coffee based on quality, not just quantity– Jan 25 2007 (Viçosa, Brazil) From The Economist print edition One morning last month in an airy hall at the Federal University of Viçosa, Brazil, the only sound to be heard was a chorus of zestfully inelegant slurping. Twenty-four

The Cup of Excellence is managed by the Alliance for Coffee Excellence Inc. (ACE) which is a non-profit making organisation. Stephen Hurst serves on the board of Cup of Excellence. Cup of Excellence ® The Cup of Excellence is a strict competition that selects the very best coffee produced in one of a number of