Farmers with buyers at the 2022 Taiwan Private Collection Auction. From left to right: Ting-Yeh Hsu (Zhuo Wu Mountain Coffee Farm), Fu-Sen Tseng (Royal Bean Geisha Estate), Alex Chou (Black Gold Coffee), Rainy Chen (Zou Zhou Yuan). All images courtesy of the Alliance for Coffee Excellence.
Fifteen nanolots of specialty coffee comprising just over 1,160 pounds in total fetched more than $93,500 at the second Taiwan Private Collection Auction for an average lot price of $80.10 per pound.
While the volume is minuscule on the global coffee scale, the auction represents a major international success for Taiwanese coffee producers on the international market, with buyers hailing from Japan, Hong Kong, China, South Korea and the United States. Buyers from the latter country included Arkansas-based Onyx Coffee Lab, which purchased two of the winning lots, and California-based Blue Bottle Coffee.
Under the Private Collection Auction (PCA) banner of the United States-based nonprofit Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE), the Taiwan PCA was co-organized by the Taiwan Coffee Laboratory (TCL) and sponsored by the Coffee Industrial Alliance of Taiwan (CIAT), a new promotional body created by the Chinese Council of Agriculture.
Related Reading
- Design Details: The Natural Path to HOH Café in Taiwan
- With NIR Heat, Rubasse Roasters Radiating from Taiwan
- Five New World Coffee Champions Named in Milan
The second Taiwan PCA included just over twice as much coffee by volume as compared to last year’s inaugural event, while generating nearly twice as much revenue.
Judges began with an initial pool of 61 competition coffees before an international jury composed of 36 different professional cuppers at eight different ACE global coffee centers ultimately determined the 15 winners, all of which scored 86+ points.
The top-scoring coffee, a washed Gesha from Royal Bean Geisha Estate that reached 89.59, sold for $183.50 per pound to Taiwanese specialty coffee trader Black Gold Coffee.
“I believe the results from this year and last year show that we can absolutely make Taiwan into the best coffee origin in Asia,” auction liaison and TCL Director of International Affairs Leo Liu said in an announcement of the results. “The producers, the roasters, and the cuppers are all fully committed to making that a reality. The public sector is also putting its weight behind this. We are not going to stop until it happens; we’re not going to stop in our pursuit of coffee quality.”
Does your coffee business have news to share? Let DCN’s editors know here.
Comment