Kaapi Royale Coffee Announces 2009 Challenge Results

ATLANTA, GA (April 22, 2009) – Rob Forsyth of Forsyth Coffee (Australia), Allen Leibowitz of Zingerman's Coffee Company (USA) and Geoff Watts of Intelligentsia Coffee & Tea (USA) are the winners of the 2009 Kaapi Royale Challenge.

All three gentlemen were able to correctly identify the species of 3 coffee samples as either Robusta or Arabica in a blind cupping held on Friday, April 17th concurrent with the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) annual exposition in Atlanta.

Winners will receive invitations to join Kaapi Royale in India for a 4-day guided farm tour of Karnataka's Chikmagalur coffee growing region during the 2010 harvest season this December. Accommodations, meals and ground transportation between Bangalore and Chikmagalur will be provided.

"We were excited by the enthusiasm shown by all of our participants," said Nishant Gurjer, Managing Partner of Kaapi Royale Coffee. "We were additionally very interested by the overall results of our blind cupping, which showed that only 1 in 6 experienced cuppers could correctly distinguish our high quality Indian Robusta from a comparably high quality Arabica coffee. We believe that industry this will go far to help dispel the myth that all Robustas are inferior to other species."

The next Kaapi Royale Challenge will be held in May 2010 at the 22nd annual SCAA conference in Anaheim, California.

About Kaapi Royale Coffee

Kaapi Royale Coffee of Magundi in the Chikmagalur district of Karnataka, India, exports fine Indian Arabica and Robusta coffees worldwide and is the exclusive representative of Sethuraman Estate coffees. Sethuraman Estate is the three-time winner of the Coffee Board of India's Flavour of India competition and received the highest-ever rating for a Robusta coffee of 94 points from coffee reviewer Ken Davids. For more information, visit the Kaapi Royale Coffee website at http://indiancoffee.wordpress.com.