Here Are The Winners Of The 2018 Good Food Awards For Coffee

Over the weekend, the eighth annual Good Food Awards held their announcement ceremony in San Francisco to celebrate the winners of this year’s awards… for good food. The GFAs were established to honor “American food and drink crafters who demonstrate a commitment to creating tasty, authentic and responsible products and in doing so, better the nation’s food system,” and for the sixth year, they have included coffee roasters as part of their honorees.

Much like cacao—whose raw materials aren’t grown in America and thus the rules are bit more lenient on sourcing—the criteria for coffee is a little different than other categories. From the GFA website:

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The winners of the Good Food Award for coffee will be distinguished by exemplary flavor – sweet, clean, well developed body, balanced acidity and phenomenal aromatics. To qualify for entry, roasters and coffee farmers must emphasize fairness and transparency from seed to cup. Acknowledging the difficulties of verifying farm-level sustainability efforts across continents, the Good Food Foundation again turns to third-party certification bodies for assistance in identifying beans eligible for consideration.

From the 27 finalists for the 2018 Good Food Awards for coffee—which were themselves chosen from countless entries—15 coffees rose to the top this year. So without further ado, here are the winners of this year’s Good Food Awards for coffee:

Blueprint Coffee, Ethiopia Hambela, Missouri
Compelling Coffee, Ethiopia Banko Gotiti Coffee, California
Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea, Organic Ethiopia Tikur Anbessa, California
JBC Coffee Roasters, Gedeb Lot 83 Ethiopia Natural, Wisconsin
Mudhouse Coffee Roasters, Limu Dabesa, Ethiopia, Virginia
Noble Coffee Roasting, Ethiopian ‘Bishan Fugu’, Oregon
Noble Coyote Coffee Roasters, Ethiopian Guji – Organic – Natural Process, Texas
OQ Coffee Co., Kayon Mountain Estate, Ethiopia, New Jersey
Ozo Coffee Roasters, Ethiopia Hambela Kirite, Colorado
Pachamama Coffee Cooperative, Organic Ethiopia Kossa Geshe & Organic Ethiopia Natural Amaro, California
Per’La Specialty Roasters, Ethiopia Shakiso, Florida
Revel Coffee, Ethiopia Kayon Mountain Guji Dry, Montana
Royal Mile Coffee, Ethiopia Shakiso Mormora Farm, New Jersey
Square One Coffee, Ethiopia Shakiso Mormora, Pennsylvania
Vashon Coffee Company, Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Natural Daniel Miju, Washington