A taster who serves as a contest judge in a tasting test.
Yesterday Thursday, the 34 national tasters registered as national judges for the El Salvador 2023 Cup of Excellence Contest gathered at the Tekreño Palace of Culture and Arts in Santa Tecla, and the first step was jury coordination.
The first phase of the contest will be from March 9th to 10th and samples will be accepted from April 19th to 26th. This is the most important stage of showing industry interest. Last year’s edition received 110 submissions.
In the first phase of this competition, future judges were trained by coffee expert Paul Songer.
The Salvadoran Coffee Council (CSC) held a competition on February 3rd. The competition seeks the best aromatic batches and opens the door to new buyers.
Programming for The Cup of Excellence 2023 event.
This is the 20th edition of the Cup of Excellence, the coffee industry’s most prestigious competition for the best beans from the producing countries.
El Salvador has been participating in the competition since 2006, in agreement with the Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE), the owner of the program and mandates an international jury to evaluate lots. Winners participate in electronic auctions with large coffee shop buyers, often paying above market prices.
Participating batches undergo a rigorous monitoring process, the board detailed in a statement. The judges are “taste blind” as they are assigned a number that only the judges of each competition know.
A national jury will evaluate the samples between May 15th and 19th. The selections will be sent to an international jury from May 22nd to 25th and will be scored according to acidity, body, residual flavor, cleanliness and grain sweetness.
The minimum ACE score is 86 out of 100, and those who achieve it are rewarded.
3 winners will be selected from the final group. In the 2022 edition, first place goes to El Conacaste farm, with a score of 91.82 for him. The second Santa Rosa Farm scored 90.36 points. The third was received by the Cueva de Olla farm after scoring 90.23 points.
Samples will be put up for international auction on July 20th and winners will be able to enter the national competition from July 17th to 21st.
Source: Diario.Elmundo
