Hi all - i have been traveling so much that i am virtually absent
from the homeroast list! however, I have good internet access here in
Antigua, Guatemala, so i thought i would file a report to the
homeroast news bureau. The El Salvador cup of excellence competition
ended yesterday, and of course i have a full spread sheet with all my
scoring (I do this for my own purposes so I can see how I ranked my
favorite coffees as they passed through the various rounds). I
haven't uploaded the spreadsheet as an html document yet, and I am
really not so sure this is very interesting or useful to anyone but
me ... but I suppose it shows you the process. In that regard, I have
tried to make a whole "cupping competition video", something I will
piece together from footage i shot at Panama, Honduras and Nicaragua
cupping events. And I am going to take my time editing it and try to
make it fairly comprehensive. This isnt like the Gene Caffe vidoe ...
I actually bought a 3 CCD video camera to make this look a bit better
than the other video.
I guess a question people might want to ask is "how are the coffees
this year?" Its a trick question because making an overall statement
about the quality of a certain crop from a certain country means you
are not only looking at top coffees, but cupping the pooled lots and
the non-competition coffees. The fact is, even in a year where there
are quality problems, where there was unseasonable weather, etc,
there is ALWAYS going to be good lots of coffee, and they are going
to be found in the competitions. I can say for sure that the final
table in Panama, the top 8 coffees, were all INCREDIBLE! And take
note that the Finca Carmen 1800 Meter lot, the EXACT same lot we are
selling (Carlos literally pulled 5 bags from the sweet marias lot and
entered it in the competition), won the 3rd position. The auction lot
will cost A LOT more than what we are selling now, and I bet we are
getting low as I write this. We WILL be getting non-auction lot La
Esmeralda Gesha in a month or so too, which will also be a "deal"
compared to the auction lot of the same coffee. I can't discuss the
coffees we are going after in the auctions, but we will have a broad
array of auction lots this year. Anyway Honduras: Honduras always has
some great coffees and some "problem" coffees. Honduras is so
incredibly under-rated - good Honduran coffees surpass so many
high-profile Central coffees, Tarrazu, Antigua, etc., and the number
one coffee in the Honduras CoE kinda shocked everyone in the coffee
community there: it was a Pacamara. If you check out my pictures of
the trip (in our Coffee Library section) you will see photos of the
farm. A lot of great Honduran coffee comes from the borders, from the
areas near El Salvador, near Guatemala ... but the winning coffee was
smack dab from the middle of Honduras. Nicaragua was an interesting
jury, with George Howell, the founder of Cup of Excellence and of the
Coffee Connection (and now Terroir coffee) taking a place on the
jury. Interesting dynamics there. I think we might have been too hard
on the coffees, scored them a bit lower than we should have. But
great coffees were found and the top 20 are solid top tier coffees.
El Salvador finals was where I scored some of my highest scores ever:
a Pacamara I gave 98 points (thats using the CoE form, which is
higher scoring than my own form). There were 5 lots in the top 10 I
thought were AMAZING coffees. Instead of flying to Guat from El Salv
I jumped in a rented van with Duane from Stumptown (Geoff from
Intelligentsia was supposed to join us but we couldn't find hime!)
and drove to Antigua, just 2.5 hours. We will go to Guat City fof the
start of the much anticipated Guatemala Cup of Excellence on Monday
Am. This was probably the hardest jury to get on this year, and
everyone has very high expectaions. I have to say that I have some
inside sources on the national pre-selection jury that said fewer
samples than anticipated were submitted and cup quality on some was
iffy and they were bounced out. But, as I said with the other
origins, there are always excellent coffees that get fleshed out in
the competition process, and I know the lots that go to auction are
going to be very special. I just suspect that the top 10 in Salvador
may have been the best on the circuit this year. Well, thats about
it, and I will return in a week ... we should be uploading new lots
in about 10-12 days (no not these auction coffees, that takes about
6-8 weeks to do all the milling, exporting, shipping ...). Poor maria
has had to hold down the fort alone for many, many weeks this year
while I am out here cupping my brains out. So be kind to her ... its
not easy.
Tom
--
"Great coffee comes from tiny roasters"
Sweet Maria's Home Coffee Roasting - Tom & Maria
http://www.sweetmarias.com Thompson Owen george_at_sweetmarias.com
Sweet Maria's Coffee - 1115 21st Street, Oakland, CA 94607 - USA
phone/fax: 888 876 5917 - tom_at_sweetmarias.com |