Three Lots Score 90+ in Ethiopia’s First Cup of ExcellenceDaily Coffee News by Roast Magazine

Winner of the Ethiopia Cup of Excellence 2020, Nigussie Gemeda. Photo courtesy of the Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE).

Despite numerous economic, social and logistical disruptions in recent months, Ethiopia’s first Cup of Excellence has crowned its first winners. Twenty-eight winning coffees, including the top three that earned more than 90 points, will head to an online auction on June 25.

While all the winning coffee producers can celebrate the achievement, celebrating the green coffee competition was an impressive feat in itself, made possible by collaboration between the Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority, the value chain activity of Ethiopia Feed the Future from USAID and the organizer of the CoE Alliance for Excellence in Coffee (ACE).

Soon after more than 1,400 coffee samples were shipped for Ethiopia’s first CoE in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, COVID-19 related restrictions began to be imposed worldwide, limiting transportation, shipping routes and the possibility of public. meetings for activities such as judging competition. In response, ACE first brought a CoE competition to American soil, organizing the delivery of competing coffees to its Portland, Oregon office, and modifying the evaluation protocol to meet safe measures of social distancing.

However, all is well, that ends well, and ACE now reports that more than 130 potential buyers are already registered for the online auction, which is expected to reward coffee growers with exponentially higher prices for their highly researched coffees than that they could receive through traditional market channels. .

The highest scoring lot in the competition came from producer Nigussie Gemeda, who offered a sun-dried natural process Sidama that scored 91.3.

“It is exciting to know that my coffee has come this far,” Gemeda said in an ad published by ACE. “Being number one was what I was looking for. I am very happy to promote our excellent coffee and to take advantage of the market opportunities that will follow the result. “

Ethiopia’s Sidama zone was particularly well represented on the list of winning coffees, as were West Arsi, West Guji and Gedeo. Reflecting an equally wide swath of coffee varieties, both known and unknown, the list was also dominated by traditional sun-dried natural products, although two of the three main batches were washed.

See the full list of Ethiopia Cup of Excellence 2020 winners.

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