Best Cup is Cafe Imports’ competition highlighting exceptional coffees and coffee producers at a regional level in Central and South America. Having previously expanded into Brazil, Best Cup is returning to where it all started, in Colombia, this September to assess coffee from four different departments in the country. And they are inviting roasters to come along for the ride.
Originally showcasing coffee from the Cauca and Huila departments of Colombia, Best Cup has grown in prior years to also include Nariño and Tolima, and it is these four departments that will yet again be featured. Taking place between Sunday, September 18th and Monday, September 26th in Popayan, Cauca, the Best Cup excursion with Cafe Imports is equal parts competition, cupping, farm visit, and auction.
“The Colombia Best Cup auction is a direct expression of some of the principles on which Cafe Imports was founded: to increase the quality of life for coffee producers and to share our passion for coffee through education and example,” Cafe Imports Green Coffee Buyer Omar Herrera tells Sprudge. Since 2014, smallholder producers participating in the auction have earned some of the highest prices paid for coffee in Colombia—all while having the opportunity to establish long-term, committed, and collaborative relationships directly with the roasters who buy their coffee.” Herrera continues, “What excites me the most about Best Cup [is] the idea of having 15+ coffee roasters from around the world cultivating relationships with some of the most passionate smallholder producers from the regions we source in.”
Operating like a traditional coffee competition, Best Cup participants will be able to taste and rank the top 15 microlots as well as “taste and select FCL workhorse, Regional Select, and Variety Select coffees,” per Cafe Imports. The trip, according to CI, also serves as “an attempt to support the supply chain and to assist roasters in building their menus for the coming harvest season.”
Much of the eight-day trip will be spent visiting various farms and cupping their coffees, before culminating the cupping and score of the top lots as well the live auction of those coffees. The producers of these award-winning lots will be on hand at the auction.
Attendees will be responsible for booking and paying for flights to and within Colombia as well as the cost of lodging. Cafe Imports will be providing participants group meals and ground transport as required by the itinerary.
For more information, to view the full itinerary, or to RSVP to attend Colombia Best Cup 2022, visit Cafe Imports’ official website.
Zac Cadwalader is the managing editor at Sprudge Media Network and a staff writer based in Dallas. Read more Zac Cadwalader on Sprudge.
All media via Cafe Imports
