From auction coffees, to green bean and specialty
COE Ethiopia winner’s announcement
The end of this week has got some vibrant news as Cup of Excellence Ethiopia announced the international and national winners on Friday, May 21.
The organizers announced they have come up with 30 Cup of Excellence winners and 9 National Winners from 1848 collected samples.
The COE auction follows to take place on June 28th – July 9th and July 7th, 2021in two phases.
In 2020 competition the auction winner Nigussie Gemeda fetched $185.10 per pound from a consortium of international buyers. Half of this lot was purchased by Maruyama Coffee Co. from Japan and its buying group, consisting of Saza Coffee, Cometeer, Goodboybob Coffee, Difference Coffee, and Harrods. The other half of the lot was purchased by Sarutahiko Coffee Inc from Japan. The second winner came from Rumudamo Coffee in Sidama. The US coffee company Intelligentsia won this bid by paying a price of US$108 per pound. The first Cup of Excellence Ethiopia offered a combined $1.34 million USD for the 28 winning coffee lots.
The rise of Ethiopian coffee production
ETHIOPIA – Africa’s largest producer and consumer of coffee, has been experiencing a steady rise in production over the past three years, attributed to stable growing conditions.
According to USDA - GAIN report, coffee production in the country is projected to reach 7.62 million bags (457,200 MT) in the Marketing Year (MY) 2021/22.
This is 20,000 million bags higher than the current 2020/21 crop estimate, assuming suitable weather and adequate rain will be experienced, indicates the report.
The growth in production volume is mainly due to the higher yields observed in the coffee growing belts mainly in southern and western regions of the country.
NCA Specialty Coffee Breakout Report
The United States National Coffee Association (NCA) and Specialty Coffee Association (SCA) have joined forces to release a report that dives headlong into specialty coffee consumption trends.
A kind of specialty-category-focused digest to the NCA’s annual National Coffee data trends publication, released earlier this year. The report illuminates the number of ways specialty coffee consumption has been altered by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Overall Consumption Trends
The report highlighted 36% of people aged 18+ reported drinking specialty coffee within the past day, compared to 58% who reported drinking at least one cup of coffee.
While the pandemic has certainly affected consumption patterns in the short term, this could be a cause for concern within the specialty coffee industry, as specialty consumption has continued in a downward trend over the past three years. Past NCA reports showed past-day specialty coffee consumption at 41% in 2017-18, down to 39% in January 2020, and now down to 36% in January 2021.
The NCA further noted that the main contributor to this trend has been downward consumption (4 percentage points) of traditional whole bean or ground specialty coffee, as opposed to things like espresso-based beverages, ready-to-drink beverages or single-serve pods.
22% reported drinking an espresso-based beverage yesterday, while 13% drank a non-espresso-based beverage.
Among all coffee drinkers, automatic drip machines and single-serve pod brewers were the most common home preparation methods within the past day. While that also held true among specialty coffee drinkers, those people were more likely to use “niche” preparation methods such as French press (5%), moka pot (3%) or pour over (2%).
