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Reisebrev fra Brasil

John Jones jobber til vanlig som daglig leder på vår avdeling i Karenlyst allè. I disse dager befinner han seg i Brasil som dommer i Cup of Excellence.
Her kan du daglig lese hans erfaringer - god lesing!

Monday morning 06:30
Oi Bom Dia sai Brasil

Just before leaving Sao Paulo I decided to visit my new favourite coffee shop SUPLICY, and to my great surprised the owner Marco Suplicy was there. As you know I am usually very shy, but on this one occasion I approached the great man introducing myselfe as a judge for the COE. He was so pleased that he showed me his whole store where they roast their own beans produced on his own farm Fazenda Santa Izabel, and even allowed me behind his bar to try out his 4 group shocking pink la marzocco. His barista had just won the Brasilian barista championship,- NO PRESSURE on me then??? He will be joining us on Friday where his company are sponsoring a visit and dinner for us, cant wait. Check him and his 6 store out here
Suplicy

Question: Does every Mini bus driver in Brasil think he is on a formula 1 circuit? Answer. Yep!

Arrived in Machado in the county of Minas Gerias (MG as we locals call it is the size of France) after a 4 hour drive. In time to meet Suzie Spindler the driving force behind the whole Cup Of Excellence project as well as Erwin Mierish the head judge and the other judges. Putting names to faces and remembering who is who was daunting but a couple of ceveja later and we are all old buddies.

The hotel is lovely and even had a Rooster kindly wake me at 05:30 this morning!! Time to go and have my first calibration session.

Tuesday morning
Oi Bom Dia sai Machado

Yesterday was the start of the serious stuff and the serious work starts. We were driven 15 km from our base at Machado to Speciality Coffee Centre Machado. Of the 210 coffees in pre selection 93 went to the national judging carried out by 16 national jurors before being whittled down to the 56 that we will be cupping over this week

After a motivation speech by Susie we started on the calibration process led by Erwin Mierish our head judge. The reason for calibration is to identify what qualities we are looking for and the faults we might find and so that we the judges score as evenly as possible. We had 7 coffees to cup of which some were finalists some had just missed out and some were eliminated early on .

On my cupping table for round 1 was Mr Hayashi (top man who does mince his words) Eduardo Ambrocio (Guatemala also head Judge) and Vytautas Kratulis (Lithuanian veteran of COE competitions) so no pressure on me at all!!

All were typically light clean with some caramel, vanilla, honey and high citrus notes. I was very very relieved to be able to identify both the best and worst on the table - thanks Synøve.

After lunch we tasted the same 7 coffees in different positions on the table. Not easy after a hearty meal but once again I did not let you down and found the two gems but struggled to pick out the duds this time.

On our return to the Machado some of the guys decided to go for a quiet stroll through `down town Machado` which inevitably meant replenishing fluid lost during our walk with some cerveja. Over dinner Susie Spindler informed me that Kaffebrenneriet are now the 4th largest buyers of Coe coffees in the world, COOL.

I have no time now (or maybe I am too slow at typing) to mention all the hellos from friends to you Thomas, Steinar, Synøve, Marit, Cecilie, John and Tine. But everyone of the Coe family sends their best.

No eating Garlic or onion, only one glass of beer and not even a sniff of caipirhinia last night and today I am soooooo ready to taste the best coffee Brasil has to offer.

We had 3 rounds of cupping this morning at the Centre for Excellence. The bean variety was mainly yellow bourbon with some catuaì (catura and mondo noueve blend). Lots of citrus, cacao ( not chocolate) clean, pleasant, with melon, and honey suckle aromas. Leaving the mouth very fresh. A few were eliminated and 5 or 6 really stood out for me. There was a slight inconsistency in taste with far too many of the samples but lets see what day 2 has in store.
After lunch we sampled some Naturals that had been eliminated early on. These proved to be nearly uniformly disliked by my fellow judges, I on the other hand discovered coffee nirvana and scored my first 90 of the day. I later discovered the one I liked was our old friend Corrego Secco (Coe circa 2005 scored 86.04 then) there will be a bag of greens in my bag next Sunday winging its way to you my friends.
Will be back with later. Bus is about to leave.

Thursday
Good morning from a warm and humid Machado, Minas Gerias , Brasil

Yesterday was day 3 of the Cup of Excellence competition here in Brasil. For those of you not familiar with the whole process this is a brief description of what brings 22 coffee lovers from afar field as the USA, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, UK, Iceland, S Korea, Taiwan, Lithuania and Sunny Norway to Brasil for a week.

Coffee historically was grown and sold to cooperatives that then sold it on getting the best possible price. The financial reward for ordinary coffee and superb coffee was the same!!  Then 10 years ago The Brasil Speciality Coffee Association in conjunction with the vision of a certain charismatic, tough and delightful American lady called Suzie Spindler, started a program that rewarded those coffee producers that cared for and produced the exceptional coffees these lands can grow. The Cup of Excellence or COE was born. Now in its 10th year participating countries include Nicaragua, Costa Rica, El Salvador Guatemala, Bolivia, Colombia and now even Rwanda. 

All farmers can enter as long as they can deliver 15 bags of their finest coffee to the regional judging panel. The coffees are blind tasted using only lot numbers to identify those coffees. Those that are successful then go through to further regional competition before the best are in a pre selection group which in this year’s case in Brasil was 210. A jury of National judges then whittles it down to 93. 56 is then tasted and graded by the International jury (us). The format for the cupping is loosely based on the scoring system described in Wine tasters Secrets by the late Andrew Sharp. This form rates the cup of submitted coffees using multiple categories.
#    Absence of defects
#    Cleanliness of cup
#    Sweetness
#    Quality of acidity
#    Mouth feel
#    Flavour
#    Aftertaste
#    Balance
#    Overall do I like it
The scoring goes from a minimum of 34 to 100 and only a coffee with a score of 84 and over can be labelled a Cup of Excellence coffee. Any scoring between 80 to 83 are graded speciality and those over 90 are called presidential. All the COE coffee therefore have been awarded 84 and over on 6 separate occasions by a variety of judges and only after the final tasting do we find out who has produced what coffee.  Those are then sold on auction online with 85% of the money going to the farmers directly. The farmer’s name is recognised and the revenue to the farmer is increased dramatically with the price increasing from an average $1:30 upwards to $ 60:00 per pound weight. The process is completely transparent and traceable.

For more information: Cup of Excellence

Kaffebrenneriet are the biggest participants of the program in Europe and we are the fourth largest in the world!

Anyway my bus leaves in 8 min. Yesterday was the final day of round 1 and we have now tasted and graded all 56 competitors. Of which 33 have scored over 84 and will go into today’s cupping round # 2.
GOTTA RUN, will let you all know what happened today and a bit more of the juicy bits from yesterday, later.
OBRIGADO BRASIL   J.J.

Friday
Good morning my friends.

Before I get on to yesterdays action I need to correct one piece of information from my brief COE story, the price for that Guatemala coffee was in fact $80,20 per pound. Not $60 as I thought

On Wednesday we were taken to visit a coffee plantation an hours drive from here by the name of Fazienda Monte Allegre, when I say plantation I should say small country. This farm is 40,000 hectares has 7,400,000 trees producing on a good year 100,000 bags of green beans each weighing 60 kg = 6,000,000 kg and if my maths is correct 6,000 tons of coffee. All of which are Arabica beans split between Mondo Nov, Catuai, Acaia and some Yellow Bourbon. However you work the figures it’s flipping huge. We were later guests at his house O.M.G. there’s no farm houses like this back in Wales or Norway. The meal was meat followed by more meat, don’t think they cater for vegetarians here.

(Can I let you in to a little secret? I am having the time of my life here and don’t let anybody tell you this is not great fun. Tasting the best coffee in Brasil, eating half a cow every night, fresh Guava juice for breakfast, all I need is to learn how to say in Portuguese “where is the pub showing the Wales rugby match tonight” drinking only juice of course. But don’t tell anyone OK)
Anyway back to business.

Yesterday we cupped the coffees deemed the best of the international selection a total of 33. It was over 4 sessions with 8 or 9 cups per table. Each of the coffee are freshly roasted the previous day. More time is spent between each session to dissect and discuss the merits and faults of each sample. The temperature is 34c in the shade and when 22 very knowledgeable (not sure about me), opinionated (oh yes that’s me) argumentative (yep me again) stubborn (mmm go on then me again) jurors from all corners of the globe chose the best of the best to be tasted 1 final time, FUN, FUN, FUN. Of the 33 on the table 28 were once again given the 84 point score bestowing on them the title of Cup of Excellence.

Today we taste the best 11 with 6 Brazilian judges from the Brazilian Speciality Coffee Association. I have my 3-4 favourites that have consistently stood out as what I consider perfection. I hope to find those on this table. At the end of the day at a presentation attended by the farmers, the winners will be announced and we get to meet the Farmers. Maybe even a glass of caipirinhia!!  Don’t want to be ungrateful to our hosts by not tasting their success again and again! So my friend’s time is getting the better of me again. Bring on the best 11 and let the fun begin.
Keep on Keeping on

Saturday

Yesterday was the final judging session when the best 10 coffees in the competition were graded. During the week the coffees have been very fresh with a strong jasmine, honeysuckle, orange bloom, vanilla pods, sweet tobacco and cacao aroma. With a nearly uniformed cleanliness that resulted in only 3 coffees being eliminated on grounds of faults. There has been a very pleasant citrus acidity to the taste, occasionally turning to astringency, not popular with me but the Brazilian judges loved it. Some more darker fruit notes then appeared with fruity apricot, peach, water and honey melon notes. Present in abundance was caramel, cocoa, peanut butter and a very pleasant white chocolate. The after taste in the samples varied from dark molasses, sugar cane, marzipan, cherry brandy, with silky smooth finish with a hint of black and green tea.

Choosing the best among these was incredibly hard and to increase the pressure we had 11 finalists as no 10 & 11 could not be separated scoring equally throughout the contest. 
We were given our final instructions then off we went into the cupping room the 22 of us, choosing who basically wins the lottery with a difference in the bean value going from $ 1:20 a pound up to potentially $ 80:00 on winning this contest. Personally, sample 1, 10 and 5 stood out on the table and I awarded them 96, 94 and 92 points. I did all my final checks deep in concentration, one last schlurp and spit of my favourites and finally allowed myself to drink a mouthful of my top three to confirm my choice. Then out I walk into the mid day searing sun.

We then discussed the results and the winning lot number was announced. We still only knew the lot numbers and had no idea of which farm or bean type had won. That would be announced at the final award ceremony to be held that night. Quick change of clothes and back we were again meeting farmers. I was very interested in trying to meet the producers of 4 of the beans sold by Kaffebrenneriet. The Sertãozinho family was particularly charming and as they spoke good English we were soon chatting away like old friends, they will be in Oslo Next summer so watch out for them visiting our stores. I wished them well in the competition and off I went to find the Corrego Secco farmers a favourite of mine from 2005 CoE. Communication with my new friend Edemar Lucio Matos Martins of that farm was a bit more cumbersome, but with my Italian and lots of hand gestures as well as a very professional brochure created by Synøve from our training department; we managed to swap business cards, take photos and agree to talk after the ceremony. The owners of Santa Alina our Easter Coffee from 2009 was not there, neither were Barreiro one of our most popular bean brands. I did however track down Homero Teixeira De Macedo Junior who produced my absolute favorite finalist coffee. And before long we entered a very modern theatre for the awards ceremony.

2 coffees were given the presidential award (over 90) and in reverse order the 26 CoE were called to the stage. My favourite was 3rd place and I was very pleased to see both Corrego Secco and Sertãozinho made the top 10. These coffees will be sent to us at Kaffebrenneriet over the next few weeks and cupped and discussed. The auction will be on the 19th of January 2009.

Later my Friends

Sunday
Last day in Brasil.

Saturday I tasted many great coffees and the green beans from 8 are in my bag winging their way to Oslo to be roasted by Synøve our queen bean for us to sample.

Today was spent in the fields of Sao Sebastiao da Grama visiting the farms of the 3rd place and 6th place at an elevation of 1,200 - 1,400. The coffee variety here was Yellow Bourbon, Mondo novo and Catuai. The coffee flowers were just starting to bloom and the aroma and scent in the air was delightful they only last 3 days before they drop off. The area is in an old volcano crater and regularly produces some of the best coffees in Brasil. The first farm was Fazenda Rainha where Casio the manager showed us around. On the farm they also grew avocado, bananas and cattle .

On a hill over looking the farms was a delightful new church paid for by one rich farmer designed by the famous architect Oscar Neimar named Santa Clara of Assisi. From here we saw also Santa Alina farm and that of Sertãozinho. The trees produce fruit one year then are cut back and allowed to re grow producing again after one year’s rest this process is called 100x0. Some trees are over 100 years old. On My return to Oslo more pictures will be added showing the beauty of where our coffees come from.

But for now my plane is about to leave without me and although I have had the most amazing experience here, my time here is at an end. Hope to return soon.

Got to fly

Obrigada Brasil J.J.