The Winners of the Awards for Coffee Excellence 2008
The SCAE's Awards for Coffee Excellence were presented on June 21 at the Wonderful Coffee event in Copenhagen. The following individuals and organisations were the winners of the 2008 Awards (together with the original nominator's notes):
Winners of The Young Entrepreneur Award:
The Coffee Collective (Denmark)
The Coffee Collective is a new micro roaster based on new ideas and a new coffee ideology. In spite of their young age, they all have years of quality coffee knowledge and experience gained through their studies, their part-time jobs within coffee during their studies, and their working experience with some of the finest within the speciality coffee community in Denmark.
Winner of The Hidden Treasure Award:
Omkafe (Italy)
In 1947, Ottorino Martinelli founded his Omkafè coffee roasting business at Riva del Garda. The roasting unit was located in the back of his Casa del Caffè, a small shop in the town centre. From here he set off every day on his bicycle to personally deliver freshly roasted ground coffee, going far into the valleys around Lake Garda. Today the product is lovingly nursed through every stage, from selection and purchase of the beans to roasting, blending and maturing, to packaging, selling and even to training baristas to prepare consistently good coffee -- an expression of the company's slogan and mission. The third generation of Omkafé proposes not only coffee for espressos, but also beans and ground coffee for all the different types of preparation, benchmarking the essential ingredients that are blended with passion to make each cup of coffee a unique encounter of flavour and aroma.
Winner of The Innovation & Design Award:
Efico (Belgium)
Efico has developed the CO2-compensated green coffee supply chain. The green coffee importer and dealer has a project for a new green coffee, processing, warehousing and distribution depot in the Belgian port of Zeebrugge. It will build five windmills to endeavour to offset the carbon emissions of the transport into Belgium from origin, and then to the roasters' plants. Meanwhile, the roof of its humidity-controlled warehouse and processing plant, which will hold 363,000 bags of coffee, will be covered in photovoltaic modules, to generate 900,000 kwh of eco-friendly energy. This is just the first stage of the development, ending in 2009. With the Rainforest Alliance, Efico will also develop pilot projects in Guatemala and Colombia to create economic incentives for coffee farmers. These will enable growers to maintain their forests and conserve their natural resources.
Winner of The Passionate Educator Award:
Serif Basaran (Turkey)
I moved over from Australia in September 2007 to Turkey and organised in just three months two Barista Competitions (one trial, one official). It was a good kick start for the baristi in Turkey to get the chance to prove themselves and to show their skills. We started since then a free educational programme, where we try to achieve a better cup of coffee. Every fortnight I invite some of my baristi friends (amateur and pro), and experiment to find a solution about how they can get a better cup of coffee. All these baristi know that one of the most important rules is to have freshly roasted coffee. So we start there and this is what we have tried and achieved: roasting with a bread baking machine; a popcorn machine; in a wok; in a pan; in a toaster; and in a grill oven. We also ground the beans the green beans once, and then we roasted them in a pan. Then I suggested that everybody have at least a hand grinder (Turkish coffee grinder). I showed them how to adjust the blades and to also get as a result espresso grind or French press grind. Currently I am selling the same amount of green beans as roasted beans; everybody wants to roast and grind coffee themselves at home and they are so excited to see what the difference is between a quality, freshly roasted and griound coffee and a months-old roasted and ground coffee. After roasting and grinding, we covered cupping. We roast a "city type" of speciality coffee. We also included in the session some local brands and also some darker roasted ones, to see what the actual difference is. Currently everyone can already say which of the coffees is fresh, which one has more aroma and body and two baristi already can see the difference between a Colombia, an Indonesia and a Kenya. I also showed them what the taste difference would be when we extract with 15 Bar, 9 Bar and 6 Bar. They now understand under- or over-extraction. They know everything about tamping and its effects. We made ourselves an manometer for just 6 Euro with local components (usually it is around 40 euro in the market). We also made a thermocouple system, which allows us to measure what the temparature is of the the coffee brewing (while extracting). This is just some of my free education lessons in Turkey, open to everyone who wants to come. Currently are we a group of 7-8 people, but we are growing.
Winner of The Lifetime Achievement Award:
Hacienda La Esmeralda (Panama)
Strange things happen in our coffee lives. In 1964 Rudolph Peterson (an American with Swedish heritage) bought Hacienda La Esmeralda in Panama for retirement purposes. He passed the administration over to his son Price in 1973, and currently his son Daniel is joining him. There are many reasons for La Esmeralda and the family to have the Lifetime Achievement award. Let us begin with the most well known: Their rare award winning coffee of Geisha varietal has set several world records for online auctions: $21 per pound in 2004, escalating to $130 per pound last year. Sold for $50 per cup in selected coffee bars in the US. This coffee has achieved what we want all quality coffees to do: it has achieved the same status as Premier Grand Cru wines. It has shown that is possible to reach this level in quality and set the path for others to follow. They have not reached this level by coincidence. Years of fine-tuning production methods and years of education and motivation and caring for the 300 people (1,000 during harvesting) employed at the Hacienda. Awards have been plentiful over the recent years, but mainly in the US. As Europeans, we should now learn from the achievements of the Peterson family and their Hacienda La Esmeralda.
Thanks to all those members who nominated the best in the industry for the SCAE's Awards for Coffee Excellence. Nominations for the 2009 Awards open in spring 2009, with the Awards scheduled to be presented at the SCAE's annual event in Cologne, Germany.