NEWS & STORIES
 |
|
Brazil Cup of Excellence update |
|
Filed under Newsletter Articles
Vertical Shoot Positioning pruning- 23 June
With the Brazil Cup of Excellence Early Harvest Auction complete, and the Late Harvest Auction underway as we speak, we thought it was a good time explain the difference between the two.
Early Harvest Vs Late Harvest: the low down
As some of you may know, this year for the first time ever, Brazil has divided their Cup of Excellence program into two categories: the Early Harvest and the Late Harvest.
The Brazil Cup of Excellence has always been open to all producers and all processes, just like in all countries that participate in the Cup of Excellence. However, in Brazil, it became clear that naturally processed coffees were not making it through to the final stages of the competition; despite the fact that they represent over three quarters of Brazils entire production. There are a few theories as to why, such as that firstly, there has been less investment made by quality focused growers into processing their coffees using the natural method due to the fact these lots often attract lower prices and can be risky to produce. In addition it is perhaps harder for naturals to compete with washed and pulped natural profiles on the same table and harder for a natural to score highly on the 'clean' and 'sweet' categories on the cupping form, etc etc.
So, the Cup of Excellence Board identified that the ideal solution was to hold a separate competition only for naturals, and after a lot of hard work, finally secured funding and approval to hold 2 competitions last September.
This means that now the Brazilian producers of naturally processed coffees finally have a platform where they can really compete on the basis of quality. This could have a great impact in Brazil amongst growers who have not typically grown their coffees for the specialty coffee market and it could also potentially raise the value of a huge amount of coffee.
So in a nut shell: The pulped natural and washed coffees enter the Early Harvest competition as they are typically processed and suitably rested for cupping sooner. The natural coffees then compete in the Late Harvest competition. A washed or pulped coffee cannot enter the Late Harvest competition and a natural cannot enter the Early Harvest competition.
