Colombia Cup of Excellence Auction Breaks All-Time Average High at $30+/lb

2021 Colombia Cup of Excellence top winner Pablo Andrés Guerrero Pérez. All images courtesy of the Alliance for Coffee Excellence.

The 2021 Colombia Cup of Excellence green coffee auction has earned the highest average price in the history of the more than 20-year-old Cup of Excellence program.

In total, the June 3 auction of 25 winning Colombian coffees, each scoring 87+ points, fetched a record-setting average of $30.79 per pound, eclipsing a global Cup of Excellence record ($28.44 per pound) set at last year’s Ethiopia COE auction.

Total revenue generated for the 25 Colombian coffees exceeded more than $540,000, while the top-scoring coffee fetched an astounding $135.10 per pound from buyer K.V.N. Import Export (1991) Co. Ltd, a name registered to wholesale coffee supplier and retailer Aroma Group, based in Thailand. The $135.10 nearly doubled the previous COE auction record ($70), which was set last year. 

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The top coffee was a washed Gesha variety from Pablo Andrés Guerrero Pérez’s farm “Obraje,” located in Buesaco, Nariño. With a score of 90.61, the lot was split into two smaller quantities for the purposes of the auction, with K.V.N ultimately purchasing both. 

“We worked to refine the process of our coffee for the contest,” Pablo Andrés Guerrero Pérez said in an announcement from COE organizer the Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE), “but we never expected to reach such a high price.” 

2021 Colombia COE winner Anibal Celestino Sanchez Burbano. Courtesy photo.

A second 90+ coffee — a washed Gesha from Anibal Celestino Sanchez Burbano’s “La Siria” farm in Huila — was also split in two. One of those splits was purchased by two Chinese buyers, while the other was purchased for $95.10 per pound by a consortium of United States buyers, including Cometeer, George Howell Coffee, Bird Rock Coffee Roasters, Intelligentsia Coffee and Passenger Coffee. 

ACE said the 2022 iteration of the Colombia Cup of Excellence competition will take place in the later part of that year to benefit producers in regions with later harvest dates. 

Click here for information on other upcoming COE competitions and auctions.