We’re finally back in France, happy of what we saw, what we tasted, the friends we met, and above all, looking forward to become good ambassadors of this wonderful coffee and the great work they do !
More than connecting buyers to producers, the Cup of Excellence plays a tremendous role in developing the sector in the country they go. Before this competition was organized in El Salvador or Brazil, those countries were barely known in the specialty coffee sector. They were known as origins doing consistent coffees, but far from the specialty industry. However, the Cup of Excellence helped them to gain recognition and helped producers & cooperatives to work differently as they have been linked to international actors at the same time. In Burundi, it will happen in the same way, now many regions are very renowned thanks to their positioning in the competition… However and what now seems more important, the Cup of Excellence should be a warning alarm for local entities in Burundi and Rwanda, concerning the
potato defect* that some of their even finest coffees face. There is a lot to do concerning this issue, research and certainly look forward to any measure possible to decrease at its lowest the risk coffees face having this problem.
Does this adventure end here for us? Certainly not,
as before we told you, we will be organizing cupping sessions of winning coffees for French roasters (or any European roaster who will like to join us) willing to participate on the auctions for buying some lots.
Here is the list of coffees winning Burundi’s 2013 Cup of Excellence:
Lot # |
Farm |
Farmer |
Region |
Score |
1 |
KINYOVU |
SOGESTAL KAYANZA |
MATONGO, KAYANZA |
90.37 |
2 |
NEMBA |
WEBCOR |
KAYANZA, KAYANZA |
90.20 |
3 |
KIBINGO |
WEBCOR |
KAYANZA, KAYANZA |
90.13 |
4 |
MPEMBA |
KAZOZA NIKAWA |
MATONGO, KAYANZA |
89.73 |
5 |
MUREHE |
SOGESTAL KIRUNDO |
MARANGARA, NGOZI |
89.00 |
6 |
GATARE |
SOGESTAL KAYANZA |
RANGO, KAYANZA |
88.50 |
7 |
BURENGO |
SOGESTAL KIRUNDO |
NTEGA, KIRUNDO |
88.27 |
8 |
MAHONDA |
SOGESTAL KIRIMIRO |
BURAZA, GITEGA |
87.70 |
9 |
BUTEMBA |
SOGESTAL KIRIMIRO |
BURAZA, GITEGA |
87.03 |
10 |
MURWI |
MURWI |
MURWI, CIBITOKE |
86.60 |
11 |
KIRYAMA |
SOGESTAL KAYANZA |
BUTAGANZWA, KAYANZA |
86.43 |
12 |
GISHAMBUSHA |
SOGESTAL KIRUNDO |
GASHOHO, MUYINGA |
86.10 |
13 |
RUHANDE |
SOGESTAL KIRIMIRO |
GISHUBI, GITEGA |
86.00 |
14 |
BUTEMBA II |
SOGESTAL KIRIMIRO |
BURAZA, GITEGA |
85.87 |
And last but not least, we present you a short video we did of our trip in Burundi… the song on the background is “Tangerine” from Led Zeppelin, we let you guess why we did choose it ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cAPrd3NOyeo&w=420&h=315
Until the next one,
The Belco Team
*The potato defect, is a problem coffees face due to the contamination of a single or many grains which keep the coffee and aroma of, literally, potato.