Coffee News From El Salvador

Starting Today, International Experts Judge Country's Best Green Beans During 2nd Annual Cup of Excellence ® Competition

Winning Coffees Will Be Selected May 14 and Then Offered for Sale to International Bidders During June 22 Internet Auction

(CSRwire) U.S. - Today in San Salvador, 20 internationally recognized coffee experts begin their weeklong sampling of 153 different Arabica coffees that were submitted by Salvadoran growers who are competing in El Salvador's second annual Cup of Excellence® countrywide coffee quality event. Based on qualities such as aroma, flavor, balance and absence of defects, each coffee will be assigned a point score of up to 100.

For El Salvador's 2004 Cup® event, a total of 403 Arabica samples were submitted by coffee growers from around the country by the April 2 deadline. From April 12-16, a jury of 14 national coffee experts tasted (or "cupped") the coffees and selected 153 of the nation's finest green beans to advance to this second stage of the competition. Following this week's "cuppings," on Friday, May 14 the 20 member international jury will select the "best of the best" green beans to receive the coveted "Cup of Excellence®" award. These winning coffees will be offered for sale to international roasters during a special Internet auction on June 22.

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Despite effort, Starbucks faces backlash

The coffee king has tried to shed its corporate image, but vandalism in Oregon illustrates the struggle.

William McCall
The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Coffee giant Starbucks has been trying its best to promote socially responsible corporate policy on grower rights and environmental ethics, but it apparently fell on deaf ears in a neighborhood where devotion to social causes runs high.
Arson investigators were called to a new Starbucks store after three windows were broken by some kind of incendiary device shortly before 11 p.m. Tuesday.

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What makes coffee full of beans?

Rio de Janeiro - The genetic makeup of arabica coffee has been deciphered for the first time by Brazilian researchers with the hopes of making a better cup o' joe and cementing Brazil's place as the largest coffee producer in the world.

A new database with about 200 000 DNA sequences will give scientists a deep understanding of what makes coffee tick, said a spokesperson for the Brazilian Coffee Research and Development Association.

The two years of research was aimed at helping Brazil produce more productive types of coffee as well as a "super-coffee" of higher quality.

Consumers aim to benefit as well with more substantial coffees that could appeal to a wide variety of tastes.

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Foreign coffee growers plea for more fair trade

By Brannon Stewart, WALB News (Albany, GA)

Plains- Americus coffee roaster owner Bill Harris led small coffee farmers through the boyhood home of Jimmy Carter Wednesday.

"This is a poem he wrote about growing up on the farm," Harris told the group.

The coffee growers have that in common with America's 39th President. They're in Georgia representing thousands of small coffee farmers and making a plea for more fair trade with the U.S. Without it, they say, many people in their countries will keep suffering.

"They cannot meet school fees for their kids, hospital bills for their kids, all the basic essentials," said Raymond Kimaro from Tanzania.

"There aren't many options out deep in the mountains of Guatemala," Harris said. "And coffee is one thing that will grow there that can be exported."

Harris is the president of Cooperative Coffees, one of the U.S. groups spreading the word about fair trade. He also owns Cafe' Campesino in Americus, where he pays more to buy his beans.

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Coffee News from Nicaragua: 497 Coffee Samples Submitted For Nicaragua's Third Annual "Cup of Excellence ®" Competition

Winning Coffees Will Be Selected May 21 and Offered For Sale During July 1 Internet Auction

(CSRwire) Norwalk, CT - A total of 497 coffee samples from small and medium-scale farms and large estates throughout Nicaragua have been submitted for the upcoming "Cup of Excellence®," the third countrywide coffee competition to be held here, according to Ernest van Panhuys, Country Director of TechnoServe/Nicaragua, one of the event's organizers.

Previously held in Brazil, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and El Salvador, the Cup of Excellence® is a country-wide tasting event that is designed to identify and promote the host country's best coffees through a series of blind tastings (called "cuppings") that are conducted by national and international coffee experts and evaluate every detail, from body and acidity to flavor and balance. Nicaraguan coffee growers of all sizes and from all regions were invited to submit samples for the 2004 Cup of Excellence®.

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Desertion of Coffee Plantations Hurts Ecosystems

José Eduardo Mora

SAN JOSE, Apr 29 (Tierramérica) - The coffee production crisis in Central America is taking a toll on environmental equilibrium, say experts, because the abandonment of thousands of hectares of plantations reduces the process of carbon fixing and oxygen production, while also leading to increased soil erosion.

International coffee prices have plummeted, forcing thousands of small and medium producers in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua to leave their land and seek other alternatives to make their livelihood. Many coffee-growing areas have been deserted or turned over to intensive livestock operations.

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