Another trip to London on Friday to visit my friends at Mercanta for a cupping of the cup of excellence samples for Nicaragua and for Guatemalan. Every time I go there the sun shines and it’s a hot day, maybe its my mood. The tables were broken down into two sessions, so I’ll break them down to write-ups.

Guatemala

I was surprised to see this competition to happen when it did. It must have been a real problem for the national jury to sample the coffees so early in the growing season. Guatemala has become far more important to us since our visit and since finding some great coffees we will be working with this year. We have at least 4 for this year’s crop, which for me are all cup of excellence standard. Some of them were hidden on this table and consistently they scored the same or a little higher than the rest of the table. Still not sure what we will do from these samples although it was interesting to see some new coffees and new regions proving themselves as worthy award winners.

Nicaragua

I love Nicaragua, as it was the first growing region I ever visited. It also in the past has grown great brewed coffee, with its typical profile of high acidity and fruitiness. The very thing I love about it has held it back for us as a growing province as we always see espresso coffee sell better than brewed.  But this year there was a big swing away from that. I tasted chocolate and body and richness with a much more balanced acidity. There were some real standouts on that table and we will be making a move for some of them, and I must admit I’m very exited about them too.

So the auctions are this week, we will of course let you know if we get what we want to get, fingers crossed.