Colombia’s FNC Preparing First ‘Land of Diversity’ National Green Competition and Auction

Café de Colombia and the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation are preparing to host the first ever national green coffee competition, which will culminate in a live auction in Bogotá Oct. 5-8, during the ExpoEspeciales Café de Colombia event.

Called “Colombia, Land of Diversity” (Tierra de Diversidad), the competition is designed to recognize coffees from the first half of Colombia’s crop year. Winning coffees in the small lot category (5,000 kg to 20,000 kg) will be recognized in numerous subcategories intended to show buyers from around the world the diversity and range of Colombian coffees. Those subcategories include:

• Acidity
• Body
• Mildness
• Balance
• Exoticness

Winners in the large lot category will be recognized simply as best estate coffees. The top five coffees in the large lot category and each of the small lot subcategories — 30 coffees in total — will then be made available during the public auction. The auction base prices will be $2 USD per pound for large lot winners, and $5 for small lot winners.

“As part of the FNC’s strategies of quality, differentiation and added-value for the entire coffee chain, and taking advantage of its know-how, this first competition seeks to highlight the great diversity of flavors of Colombian coffees, draw domestic and international attention to exceptional coffees and concentrate regional and departmental initiatives into one single national competition,” the group said in a recent announcement of the competition and auction.

Although August 15 was the deadline for producers to submit coffees, all winning coffees this year will be eligible to submit to the competition next year, the FNC said. For more information on the Colombia Land of Diversity contest, including details on auction participation eligibility, visit the ExpoEspeciales website. Here’s an infographic with additional details: