El Salvador 2010 Cup of Excellence – Winning Farms

This week marked the 2nd week in a row an international jury descended on a Central American host for a Cup of Excellence competition.  The jury awarded the Cup of Excellence to thirty lots, including three lots achieving a CoE Presidential award for scoring higher than 90 points on the final day.  From the CoE press release on the event, the international jury was somewhat divided in its preferences for El Salvador’s choice bourbons and pacamaras.  Here’s hoping we are able to get our hands on some gems like we did with the Altamira Pacamara from last year.

Lot #	Farm	Farmer	Region	Score
1	Finca Suiza	Julia Margarita Martinez Molina	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	91.05
2	El Ausol	Maria Elena Avila Magaña De Muyshondt	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	90.48
3	La Montanita	Antonio Rene Aguilar Lemus	Alotepec-Metap N	90.45
4	San Isidro	Bessie Batres Smith De Giron	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	89.25
5	Los Andes	Juan Jose Ernesto Menendez Arguello	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	89.16
6	San Joaquin	F.A. Pacas Y Cia	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	88.86
7	Los Pirineos	Los Pirineos S.A. De C.V.	Tecapa-Chinameca	88.84
8	La Batalla #1	Guillermo Magaña Flores	Alotepec-Metap N	88.84
9	Las Mercedes	Giron Salazar Hijos Y Cia Francisco	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	88.70
10	Llano Grande	Proyectos De Venta Y Compra, S.A. De C.V…	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	88.18
11	La Pinera	Luis Alonso Araujo	Cacahuatique	86.50
12	El Porvenir	Adilia Encarnacion Aguilar De Pullinger	Tecapa-Chinameca	86.30
13	Agabo	Adda Mercedes Serarols Diaz	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	86.07
14	San Carlos	Carlos Alfredo Mendez Florez	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	86.05
15	Cerro Negro	Jose Armando Portillo Peraza	Alotepec-Metap N	85.95
16	La Gloria/Nueva Granada	Maria Jose Huezo Rodriguez	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	85.91
17	Santa Teresa I	Marco Antonio Batres, Teresa Eugenia Gia…	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	85.70
18	Casa De Zinc	Casa De Zinc, S.A. De C.V.	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	85.18
19	La Campanula	Lima Y Socios	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	85.07
20	Pinares 2	Hector Manuel Velasquez Guzman	Volcan de San Salvador	85.05
21	Los Amates – Tablon Los Chorros	Finca Los Amates, S.A. De C.V.	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	85.05
22	Divina Providencia	Roberto Samuel Ulloa Vilanova	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	85.05
23	Villagalicia	Pretoria, S.A. De C.V.	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	84.73
24	Opalo	Daniel Ernesto Aguilar Zarco	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	84.68
25	El Jocotillo	Anna Elaine Del Carmen Rivas De Vega	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	84.55
26	Santa Barbara	Cia. Agrop. De Exportacion Centroamerica…	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	84.45
27	Las Nubes I	Ernesto Lima Mena	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	84.39
28	El Milenio	Kristal S.A.	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	84.36
29	Miralvalle	Marta Dolores Menendez De Riera	Apaneca-Ilamatepec	84.23
30	Las Palmas	Los Pirineos S.A. De C.V.	Tecapa-Chinameca	84.11

La Batalla

Guillermo Magaña Flores

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Persistance Pays

The heights by great men reached and kept
Were not attained by sudden flight,
But they, while their companions slept,
Were toiling upward in the night.

-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A few months ago, I decided to take the plunge and host a pre-auction cupping of El Salvador 2009 Cup of Excellence samples. I was hoping to become part of a buying group for the auction that followed.  The auction came and went, and maddeningly, many of us were not able to pull a group together, despite the relatively low prices for this auction (many lots priced in the $3-$4/lb. range).

Prior to the auction, I had contacted the Colleen Anunu, Director of Coffee at  gimme! coffee, a small artisan roastery serving retail, wholesale, and web customers out of NY state. We discussed possible collaboration on Cup of Excellence buying, and agreed to compare notes on the El Salvador lots.

The auction opened, and, like the Colombia auction, I could not get together a group.   Here’s a quote from one of the many emails I sent after the auction:

There I was cobbling together folks, working on getting importing support, and BAM–auction closed. I should have done what I wanted to do and just bid on a lot and let the chips fall.

Pricing for the lot I most wanted, the #19 Altamira I, ended at $3.10.

Crushed.  It mattered not that I didn’t have the cash on had for the whole lot, or that I’d only bought my first bag of coffee little more than a year ago, or that my entire customer base is a small group of home coffee roaster spread thinly around the country.  Failure does not cup well.

Fortunately, I’ve been cursed blessed with modicum of stubbornness, so I started checking the listings for the winning bidders on each lot. Lot #19 Winning bidder….T.A.N. Coffee!  I had contacted Lay Yong Tan from TAN Coffee back in April, during the Colombia auction.  I got him on the third ring, offered my congratulations on his winning bids (he won the #21 and #25 lots as well), and asked the question du joir:  Would he be willing to sell any of the Altamira?

The answer?

(photo credit: gimme! Coffee)

Nearly five months after the auction, I purchased almost half the lot of Altamira I from TAN Coffee, and immediately sent ten 34.5 kg boxes to gimme! coffee.  Less than a week later, five boxes arrived here at No Quarter Coffee, accompanied by boxes of the #21 El Salvador, La Trinidad,  and the #27 Colombia lot, La Esperanza.  The first glimpse of the coffee housed at the freight terminal brought a smile to my face that remained for days.

El Salvador 2009 Cup of Excellence Washington DC Cupping – Initial Thoughts

Yesterday I held my fist Cup of Excellence official group cupping at the Counter Culture Coffee Washington DC training center.  We had six people cupping these excellent coffees.  First, I have to extend a huge thank you to Alex Brown, who runs the training center for all his hard work helping me host this event.  I could not have done this without you carrying so much of the load.  Thanks also to Counter Culture Coffee for setting up the training center as a place where all in the local specialty coffee scene can collect and do wonderful things.

Besides me, our small crowd included Samuel Demisse from Keffa Coffee, the aforementioned Alex Brown, Joel Finkelstein from Qualia Coffeehouse, David Fritzler from Tryst Coffeehouse, and our surprise star-cupper, Peter Lynagh (formerly of CoE Founder George Howell’s Terroir Coffee).  Here he is in action back in the Terroir days.

When I invited Peter, the name rang a bell–and I knew he had some experience, but I had not yet connected the dots–turns out I brought in ringer.  While he looks young, he’s been on two CoE juries (I believe he was the youngest jury member ever in the CoE) and learned and worked for over five years alongside George Howell and his staff at Terroir.  Peter was a great addition to our event, and had excellent insight into the beans–as did all of our cuppers.

We managed to stay mostly on schedule, and reached some consensus on lot preferences.  Overall, there were some outstanding lots on the table–most of agreed that the #1 lot stood out in the top five.  From my own view, the effort to arrange for a group cupping was infinitely more satisfying than cupping the lots solo.  I learned so much more from having all of us compare notes after each flight, and it was more satisfying to roast and prepare samples for more than just me.  Everyone enjoyed themselves and we drove off into thoughts of future plans for local events and cuppings.  Stay tuned for more events.

When I first hatched the idea of hosting a CoE cupping, I had little idea what I had signed up to do.  Roasting and cupping the Colombia samples gave me a view into the roasting effort and the concentration needed to cup several flights of similar origins, but I had yet to learn all the work needed to pull together the event for more people.   I had little idea of the interest or potential turnout, especially for an unknown and a homeroaster.  As it turned out, we had a good mix of people, and a small enough group that the logistics did not overwhelm me on the first attempt–another good learning experience.

One thought has stuck with me as I prepared and participated in the event.  As I try to break further into the industry, with coffee as an avocation vice vocation, it’s easy to see where I am at a great disadvantage in one area.  You see, in one particular way there is a huge difference between the home-(roaster, cupper, barista) and the professional roaster/barista/cupper that is comitted to their craft.  What the “home-” version lacks are the hours, the daily sessions, in many cases the tools, and, most importantly I think, the mentoring that many folks get from the master roasters and cuppers that have been refining their craft for decades.  If I look at what Peter brought to the table, it was easy to see the years of mentoring that George Howell and his staff gave him.  I see some of the same things as I interact more with the pros–I just do not have the hours available to practice my craft like they do.  It’s not insurmoutable, but it is an important lesson to remember.  I will not go as far to say that the home-roaster or home-barista does not have useful insights to provide to the discussion.  What I and we must remember is to engage the community with the humitily that all of us have far more to learn than we have learned.  That said, what I do think the home- community can bring to the table is an ability to collect, communicate, and innovate at a pace which the individual professional cannot hope to achieve. The sheer numbers, if networked well, can provide for a pace that could be blistering.  Think of an analogy of the current version of massively parallel computers, which consist of thousands of small, relatively cheap individual processors linked together and quickly took over the supercomputer market vs. the large, expensive processors like the old Cray computers.  That’s the potential of what a well-connected home- or prosumer community could bring to specialty coffee.

An event like this is humbling, and a good reminder of what more I have to learn.  That is not disheartening in the least–in fact, the view ahead looks better every day.

I’ll post some more thoughts after another round of CoE cupping tomorrow, along with some photos of this event that I managed to grab in between slurps.

El Salvador 2009 Cup of Excellence – Washington DC Cupping Event

Thanks to the generosity of Alex Brown and the folks at Counter Culture Coffee, I will be hosting a cupping event for the top twenty lots from the El Salvador 2009 Cup of Excellence.  The event will occur at 1:00 p.m. Wednesday May 27, 2009 at the Counter Culture Washington DC training center.  Please contact me (chad at noquartercoffee dot com) if you are interested in attending.  The space is limited, but we’re not out of room just yet.  Map information is below.

I’m roasting up samples right now–these are some beautiful coffees, and the roasting fragrances fill the air with the anticipation of excellent cups.

El Salvador 2009 Cup of Excellence – Winning Farms

The 2009 El Salvador Cup of Excellence Competition completed last Friday.  The international jury awarded the Cup of Excellence to thirty-three lots.  Samples should be shipping to prospective buyers (including me) in the next few weeks.  Stay tuned for a Washington DC area cupping near the end of May.

Full listing of the winning lots can be found here; I’ve also reproduced them below.  Several farms are repeat winners from last year.  Two of the growers whose lots I purchased last year repeated this year-Ana Sylvia Elizabeth Schonenberg Aguiluz with San Isidro at #10 (she won the #19 last year) and Gloria Mercedes Rodríguez Fontan repeated at #18, albeit with a lot from Finca San José (vs. El Pourvenir from last year).  I’m looking forward to roasting and cupping these samples.  Congratulations to all the winning farms, and well done to the Salvadoran Coffee Council, or El Consejo Salvadoreño del Café.  From what Paol Mark from Transcend Coffee has written, the Consejo ran an outstanding competition.  Also, many thanks to the regular twitter and blog updates from Paol.  Those of us following the action from afar greatly appreciate your efforts to provide regular updates.

PLACE SCORE VARIETY FARM GROWER 1 91.68 Pacamara El Topacio María Elena Ávila Magaña de Muyshondt 2 89.86 Bourbon El Jocotillo Lote A Anna Elaine del Carmen Rivas de Vega 3 89.86 Bourbon Fátima Carmen Duch Martínez 4 89.61 Pacamara Buenos Aires Calera, S.A. de C.V. 5 89.50 Bourbon La Batalla Guillermo Magaña Flores 6 89.43 Bourbon La Ávila Ortiz Barriere, S.A. de C.V. 7 89.43 Bourbon La Nueva Rafael Duch Martínez 8 89.34 Pacamara Santa Teresa I Marco Antonio Batres Bendix 9 88.84 Pacamara Nicolás Mountain Marco Antonio Batres Bendix 10 88.70 Bourbon San Isidro Ana Sylvia Elizabeth Schonenberg Aguiluz 11 86.75 Bourbon El Carmen Juan Duch Martínez 12 86.58 Bourbon Los Amates Graciela Haydee Magaña de Fortin Magaña 13 86.45 Bourbon Villa España Alfredo Antonio Mena Lagos 14 86.20 Bourbon/Pacas El Torogoz Regpa, S. A. de C. V. 15 86.15 Bourbon San Jose/Shangrila Juan Carlos Gregg Meza 16 86.08 Bourbon Monte Nevado Regina de Carmen Meardi de Papini 17 85.83 Bourbon El Optimismo Socorro Martínez de Zepeda 18 85.78 Bourbon San José Gloria Mercedes Rodríguez  Fontan 19 85.78 Pacamara Altamira I Marco Antonio Batres Bendix 20 85.48 Bourbon Malacara Lote A Pergamino, S.A. de C.V. 21 85.43 Bourbon La Trinidad Francisco Eduardo Nuñez Iraheta 22 85.30 Bourbon Buena Vista Casal S.A. de CV 23 85.28 Bourbon/Pacas Nombre de Dios San Juan Maria Elena Domínguez de Botto Isassi 24 85.20 Bourbon San José La Cumbre Enma Duarte de Vásquez 25 85.15 Bourbon Andres Peak Marco Antonio Batres Bendix 26 84.80 Bourbon El Cashal Maria Alicia Otilia Magaña Castillo 27 84.78 Pacamara La Montañita Antonio Rene Aguilar Lemus 28 84.60 Bourbon Santa Sofía Pacvil, S.A. De C.V. 29 84.53 caturra Nejapa Tablón Roma Gloria Mercedes Rodríguez Fontan 30 84.28 Bourbon Los Planes Sergio Edmundo Ticas Reyes 31 84.25 Bourbon Helvetia Carmen Elena Calderón Sol de Escalón 32 84.23 Bourbon Malacara Lote B Chantuc, S.A. de C.V. 33 84.20 Bourbon San Carlos Amadeo Riera y Solsona