Gourmet Coffee Beans

The Alliance for Coffee Excellence, Inc. (ACE) is pleased to announced the addition of Costa Rica to its prestigious Cup of Excellence® competition line up for 2007. The Specialty Coffee Association of Costa Rica (SCACR) recently announced its plans to hold the international cupping week during May 14th to 18th and the auction June 21st. Cup of Excellence supporters are already signing up to be included on the jury and to bid at the auction.

“With the new joint venture between COE and the Specialty Coffee Association of Costa Rica we are looking forward to motivate the Costa Rica coffee producers to continue improving their agricultural coffee practices and milling, that as a result will turn into exceptional coffee quality lots,” explained Gema Siri the SCACR Executive Director. “Through the COE Program we hope more international roasters fall in love with the quality we are producing and also open new opportunities for specialty coffees of Costa Rica to be known worldwide as one of the best coffees of the world,” she continued.

Five Central American countries are now part of the Cup of Excellence program which manages the selection of the country’s finest coffees during a very stringent 3 week process involving 2 different juries. “Costa Rican coffees are known world wide for their quality and are an important part of any specialty coffee company”, explained Susie Spindler, Executive director of ACE. “These coffees will be an exciting addition to our exemplary coffee line up and will bring many buyers to the auction”.

The winning farmers will be presented their Cup of Excellence award during an emotional awards ceremony on the evening of May 18, 2007 when farmers, press, dignitaries and the international jury anxiously will await the winners’ names to be announced.

The Costa Rican program will mark the thirty-third competition for the Cup of Excellence program since it’s beginnings in 1999. Other current countries to host the program include Brazil, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Colombia. The Cup of Excellence program is managed by the non-profit Alliance for Coffee Excellence, Inc, The state of the art Cup of Excellence auction has been managed in partnership with CommoditiesOne, a leading software development firm since 2002. For more information about the Cup of Excellence program, to become a member and to learn more about Costa Rica’s finest coffees log on to www.scacr.com

Coffee lovers the world over are unknowingly drinking coffee that was illegally grown inside one of the world’s most important national parks for tigers, elephants and rhinos, according to an investigative report released by World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Illegally grown coffee from Indonesia is mixed with legally grown coffee beans and sold to such companies as Kraft Foods and Nestle among other major companies in the United States and abroad.

WWF tracked the illegal cultivation of coffee inside Indonesia’s remote Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park (BBS) all the way through its export routes to multinational coffee companies and the shelves of grocery stores across the United States, Europe and Asia using satellite imaging, interviews with coffee farmers and traders, and by monitoring coffee trade routes.

Trade of illegal coffee is possible because neither exporters nor importers have any mechanisms in place to prevent the illegal beans from entering the supply chains. Bukit Barisan Selatan, a World Heritage Site on the southern tip of Sumatra Island, is one of the few protected areas where Sumatran tigers, elephants and rhinos coexist. It has already lost nearly 30% of its forest cover to illegal agriculture, most of which is for coffee production.

Indonesia is the world s second-largest exporter of robusta, a kind of bean often used in instant and packaged coffee sold in supermarkets. At least half the country s coffee is exported through the port of Lampung, adjacent to the national park. WWF s investigation found farmers growing coffee on more than 173 square miles of park land (about two-thirds the size of Chicago) and producing more than 19,600 tons of coffee there each year. Most wildlife has already abandoned the sections of the park that have been illegally converted to coffee plantations. Illegally grown coffee is exported to at least 52 countries.