Coffee From Cerrado Mineiro Region Tops 2021 Brazil Cup of Excellence Competition

2021 Brazil Cup of Excellence winner Vitor Marcelo de Queiroz Barbosa and family at Fazenda Cachoeira in Carmo do Paranaíba, Brazil. Images courtesy of the Brazil Specialty Coffee Association.

In a coffee year marked by supply chain disruptions, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and drought followed by frost, producers throughout Brazil managed to impress a jury of international judges at the 2021 Brazil Cup of Excellence green coffee competition.

A yellow catuaí lot produced by Vitor Marcelo de Queiroz Barbosa of Fazenda Cachoeira in Carmo do Paranaíba (Cerrado Mineiro region) scored 90.50 to take the top prize in the competition.

Twenty-eight other competition coffees — including a yellow bourbon lot from Luiz Paolo Dias Pereira at Fazenda do I.P. in Carmo de Minas that scored 90.14 — reached at least 87 points to win COE awards.

Additionally, the competition resulted in nine “National Winners,” which all scored between 86-86.99 points in the competition’s final round.

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The COE auction, available online to Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE) members, is scheduled to take place Monday, Dec. 20, with an opening price of US$5.50 per pound. The Brazil National Winners auction is set to run from Dec. 10-21, with an opening price of $4.50 per pound.

Additionally this year, ACE, the Brazil Specialty Coffee Association (BSCA) and United States-based startup M-Cultivo are launching the “Brazil Select” online marketplace for Brazil COE submissions that scored 86 or above in national judging rounds but did not pass on to the international round.

From the BSCA’s perspective, the competitions and auctions are part of the ongoing “Brazil The Coffee Nation” sector development project, designed to build market connections for high-quality Brazilian beans in key markets throughout the world, including Canada and the United States.

The yellow catuaí from Fazenda Cachoeira.

“I love cupping the Brazil Cup of Excellence,” COE international judge and Campos Coffee (Australia) green coffee buyer Lloyd Thom said in a post-competition announcement from the BSCA. “It’s always an amazing opportunity to reset my ideas and impressions of what Brazilian coffee can taste like, and there’s no better example of the endless variety of different flavors and experiences that we can get from coffees from the global coffee nation.”

The COE remains an internationally renowned green coffee competition designed to highlight some of the finest coffees in participating countries. A June auction for the 2021 Colombia COE program resulted in an average price per pound of more than $30, with a split of the top lot, a washed Gesha scoring 90.61, fetching $135.10 per pound.