Who knew searching for the world's finest artisan coffee could be dangerous? Read Jeff's travel journal as he heads to Guatemala to judge the 8th national Cup of Excellence competition, right before the volcanic eruption of Pacaya and whirlwind tropical storm Agatha (the one that caused the sinkhole in Guatemala City).
Greetings from Guatemala
By: Jeff Babcock
I arrived early yesterday after taking the red eye from Seattle via Houston to Guatemala City, Guatemala for their 8th National Cup of Excellence Competition. I've been involved with the Cup of Excellence Competition since the beginning - this is my 8th time judging it.
After a long nap at the Crown Plaza Hotel in Guatemala City, I had a light lunch and chatted with a couple of other early arrivals who would also be judging the competition. Twenty-one judges from around the world will cup and grade the top 40 coffees.
It's a great time. The judges come from all over the globe: Brazil, Canada, the US, Russia, Germany, Norway, Lithuania, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand.
This year's competition is being held at Anacafe, the Guatemala National Coffee
Association in Guatemala City.
When we arrive, national judges have already trimmed down the coffees
from 122 entrants to the final 40.
Cup of Excellence Kick Off
We kick off the day with an hour-long lecture delivered by William
Hempstead, the Director of Anacafe. He goes into great detail on the
coffee production structure and current condition of the 90,000 coffee
farmers in Guatemala.
At 11:00 AM, we go into a series of calibration. Sylvia Leite,
the head judge from Brazil will lead us in a review of sensorial
training.
Zoka fun fact: A good cupper isn't just knowledgeable about
coffee - he or she must constantly train their sensory system and it
takes a long time to develop a good palate.
This sensorial training consists is an hour of sensory review. For example, cupping terminologies and technical standards of the daily
cuppings. We will review the new
computerized scoring sheets and the qualifiers of sweet, body, taste,
flavors, acidity, mouth feel and how they relate to the scoring. We will
also review the taints and defects in coffee such as fermentation.
Fermentation is when coffee has stayed in the water cleaning process for
too long. Another defect is metallic phenol, a very nasty medicinal
alcohol flavor that coffee sometimes picks up from poor processing, or
other negative flavors such as underdeveloped astringent coffee, gritty, dirty, or harsh coffees.
You can really pick out these defects as the coffees cool down when you
are cupping.
The winning coffees usually stand out with incredible flavors of
chocolate, citrus, berry, black current, caramel spicy, honey, fruit,
almond or nutty flavors. And of course, the really good coffees are
always very sweet and juicy with their profiles.
The scores are based on a 100-point scale and the top coffees will score
over
87 points. The solid coffees over 84 points and the Presidential
winners with scores over 90 points.
Each session will take an hour with 30 minutes of deliberation. This
will go on for about 7 hours for the first several days and then 2
hours on the last day Friday, when we judge the top 10 coffees. There is
an awards banquet that evening and then we will get to go to the
winning farms the next two or three days, to meet these great farmers and
build relationships for future coffee purchases. This is how I have
found many of the great Cup of Excellence and artisan coffees for Zoka.
Tomorrow, I will begin the process of cupping coffees -- spitting and
slurping to catch all of the nuances of flavors. It is an exhausting
experience, but worth the effort when we find and sample some of
the world's best coffees. I will be
in bed before 10:00 in order to be ready for the 7 hours of cupping
the next day brings.
That is all for now!
Until Next Time,
Jeff Babcock
Zoka Coffee President
PS. Stay tuned for the next travel log and read about Jeff vs. the Volcano
