Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality Scores Announced at Sustainable Coffee Breakfast

Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms in Colombia, Ethiopia, Honduras, El Salvador, India, Mexico and Guatemala earned top marks at the Rainforest Alliance’s spring Cupping for Quality event. The results were announced this morning at the annual Rainforest Alliance Sustainable Coffee Breakfast at the Specialty Coffee Association of America’s (SCAA’s) annual tradeshow in Houston, Texas.

A total of 76 samples from 10 origins were submitted to the spring cupping event, which took place at the InterContinental Exchange Grading Room in New York City in early April. A panel of expert cuppers, representing a combined 150 years of experience in the coffee industry, participated in the two-and-half-day event. The samples were prepared by Marty Curtis of Combustion Systems Sales & Service, and cuppers used a cutting-edge iPod app - developed specifically to reduce paper use during coffee grading - to record their scores.

The highest score - 89 points - went to the Aguadas group from Colombia. Located in the Andean rainforest in the north of the country, the group has over 4400 acres (1800 hectares) under certification, at an altitude of over 6800 feet (2100 meters). For the first time in the history of the Rainforest Alliance Cupping, all of the samples scored above 80, the threshold for specialty coffee. Fourteen samples achieved scores of 85 or higher - an indication that sustainable farming practices can contribute to the production of high-quality coffee. Rainforest Alliance certification requires the implementation of strict criteria covering best social and environmental farm management practices. In an effort to link sustainable farming with cup quality, the Rainforest Alliance developed its Cupping for Quality program in 2003.

“Certification is most beneficial to coffee farming communities when it results in quality crops, and in Rainforest Alliance’s case it does,” explains Linda Smithers, a long time champion of the Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality event and former president of the SCAA. “When we taste coffee produced through best practices, we see a more consistently high quality product.”

The nine cuppers at the spring 2011 Cupping for Quality were:

• Linda Smithers, Lead Cupper
• Allen Leibowitz, Zingerman's Coffee Co.
• Jordan Hooper, Louis Dreyfus Commodities
• Marty Curtis, Combustion Systems Sales & Service
• Michael Perz, Timothy's Coffee
• Mike Love, Coffee Labs Roasters
• Richard Clermont, Van Houtte
• Stephen Schulman, S&D
• Steve Colten, Atlantic USA

Full results from the spring 2011 Cupping for Quality can be found at the following website:
http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/agriculture/crops/coffee/cupping-quality

The Top Ten Scoring Coffees

The highest scoring farms in each country were:

The Rainforest Alliance Cupping for Quality takes place twice a year to accommodate for varying coffee harvest cycles around the world. Coffees from Brazil, East Africa, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea are evaluated each December. The results from the December 2010 session can be found here http://www.rainforest-alliance.org/agriculture/crops/coffee/cupping-quality.

In 2010, more than 219,000 metric tons of coffee was produced on Rainforest Alliance Certified farms, an increase of 30 percent over 2009. Coffee from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms now represents an estimated 2.5 percent of the global market.

To learn more about Rainforest Alliance Certified™ coffee farms and how certification benefits coffee farming communities, visit www.sealyourcup.org or www.rainforest-alliance.org.

Anna Clark
Communications Associate, US & Canada
Rainforest Alliance

665 Broadway, Suite 500
New York, NY 10012
Phone: +1 (646) 452-1939 / +1 (646) 452-1939
Fax: +1 (212) 677-2187

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