Japanese and Europeans dominate in Cup of Excellence auction

17th May 2008

Japanese and European companies, including several SCAE members, dominated the first of 2008’s Cup Of Excellence auctions in mid-May, taking the lion’s share of the lots available from among the programme’s winning Costa Rican coffees.

Japanese trader Wataru & Co, acting for C&C, came away with the winning coffee lot, 15 bags of a caturra/catuai variety from Maria Mayela Quesada Rodriguez’s Importadora Latinoamericana farm. Wataru’s winning bid was $15.10 per pound for the coffee from Costa Rica’s Naranjo region, one of many of the winners that were processed on recently established micromills on the farms themselves.

The number 2 coffee lot in the auction, 15 bags from the Sin Limites farm run by Maribel Barrantes Zuñiga and Katia Barrantes, also achieved $15.10 in the auction, from British importer Mercanta, on behalf of Monmouth Coffee of the UK, Spain’s Cafés El Magnifico and Cafés Méo of France. The Villa Sarchi variety originates from the same West Valley region of Costa Rica, processed on a micromill that began operations three years ago.

Mercanta was the winning bidder again with the auction’s third highest rated coffee, 16 bags of caturra from Luis Paulo Bonilla Solis’ La Loma farm. Bidding $12.10 a pound for the strictly hard bean type from the San José region, the UK importer was representing British retailer Fortnum & Mason and Norway’s Den Gyldne Bønne.

Of the 30 winning Costa Rican lots in the Cup of Excellence programme this year, only two were won by American firms. The remaining lots went to European companies, which besides Mercanta (which took three lots) included Norway’s Kaffebrenneriet, Supremo Kaffeeroesterei and Andronicas World of Coffee at Harrods, and to Japanese concerns, including Wataru (which claimed six lots) Maruyama Coffee, Time’s Club, Toa Coffee Co, and Nippon Coffee Trading.