No Quarter Coffee

What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything? –Vincent Van Gogh

The previous post described the roasting and cupping process for this year’s Colombia Cup of Excellence samples.   Prior to ordering the samples and registering for the auction, I had been contacting Mid-Atlantic roasters, surveying their interest in forming buying groups for 2009 Cup of  Excellence auctions.  A few expressed interest, but as I renewed contact for the Colombia auction, no one showed any great interest.  During the cupping, I discussed auction plans with my backers, all of whom renewed their pledge to back me for a portion of a winning lot.  This arrangement was similar to what we had all agreed for the 2008 Brazil Cup of Excellence, where we were able to secure a couple of bags of the #11 lot, with Mercanta acting as our buying agent.  My fellow homeroaster, Larry Lewis, arranged it all, distributing the majority of the beans through the Green Coffee Buying Club this past month.  That success brought more folks into the fold, and we were looking at a good position to secure 3-4 bags or more of any winning lot.  I fed the folks night-by-night wrap-ups of my cuppings, and we were all excited heading into auction day.

Auction Preparations

The morning of the auction, I started contacting importers, gauging their interest in setting up buying groups, or to provide support to bring the bags into the US.  First contact was not promising, as conditions in Colombia were combining against us.  The price differentials on Colombian coffee were going through the roof, due mainly to lower projections of the harvest, and a pending trucker strike in the country.  Two importers waived off participation in buying groups or importing, as they were not going to be bringing containers into the US for several months.  I immediatly went into a scramble to secure an importer, in case I could put together a buying group.

As the auction started, the bids starting coming in, albeit slowly.  A little background on the auction process–the auction is run so that the countdown timer does not start until there is a minimum bid put in on all the lots.  Once that occurs, a three minute countdown timer starts, with the auction ending if no one has bid.  In practice, the countdown usually lasts 4-5 hours or more, as folks continue to manuever to grab their desired lots.

So as the countdown timer had started, I had yet to find a willing importer or a buying group.  All the while, my compadres are egging me on, as my favored Lot #12 was still hanging at just over $2/lb.  I knew that wouldn’t last, so I kept working the importers and other roasters.  Within an hour, I had secured an importer, but still no takers for a buying group.  I had exhaused my roaster list, either because of lack of interest, or folks not available.

Second Wind

Having exhausted all my contacts, I called the folks from the Alliance for Coffee Excellence, the group that manages the Cup of Excellence.  Susie Spindler, the ACE Executive Director, and Jon Lewis, the Membership Liaison, gave me a list of potential buyers, and also suggested I contact other US roasters listed on the CoE membership rolls.  More calls, including some of the main buyers/coffee directors for some of the larger US specialty roasters.   Still no takers, other than one group that offered a possibility of sharing some of the coffee if their bid were successful.  Several folks called me back right near the auction’s end, after I had concluded that efforts to form a buying group were not coming to fruition.

The End

Bidding ended near 4 pm Eastern time, with no shots fired from my group.  Four of the twenty-seven lots went to North American groups, including the top two lots won by Coffee Bean International (for Target).  Not a great showing for North America and the US.   I talked to several of my potential buying group after the auction–all of us were disappointed–the lots we targeted were all within our desired price range, but we didn’t have quite enough buying power for a full lot.  My main emotion was disappointment at the opportunity lost, along with a strong desire to learn and improve future efforts.  I would have loved to pull one of these coffees into the US, but the experience has given me new insight into what a successful bidding effort will require.

I’ve had many conversations with different people about the Cup of Excellence since the auction.  Many people have offerred theories on why fewer of the North American roasters are going after auction lots.  I think it boils down to a few things–many of the original roasters involved in the Cup of Excellence have moved on to other direct relationships with growers and exporters working to develop differentiated micro lots.  Colombia, in particular, has experienced great success in the last few years, with folks like Alejandro Cadena from Virmax, who is responsible for the Las Mingas project with Gimme! Coffee and the La Golondrina project at Counter Culture Coffee.  These efforts have been repeated in other countries, so the larger of the specialty roasters like Counter Culture, Gimme! Coffee, Intelligensia, and Dillanos have focused on their own relationship cofffes and no longer need or focus on the Cup of Excellence.  Now, that’s a big swipe, and I do not write that as a pejorative statement.  All of these companies continue to support the Cup of Excellence, but their buying of lots has fallen off as their own direct trade coffee projects have come to fruition.

This first auction experience, and follow-on discussions of the Cup of Excellence in the US just add fuel to my vision to help pull together a new generation of smaller, up and coming roasters in the Mid-Atlantic area to expand growth of specialty coffee seed to cup.  Successful bids for Cup of Excellence lots will serve as our first step.  We will meet sucess, we will support the farmers by our purchases, and we will introduce more people in the US to Cup of Excellence coffees.  Momentary setback on our learning journey in specialty coffee.

Success teaches us nothing; only failure teaches. –Hyman G. Rickover

This entry was posted on April 28, 2009 at 8:48 pm and is filed under coffee roasting, Uncategorized with tags brazil coffee, brazil cup of excellence, Colombia Coffee, colombia cup of excellence, cup of excellence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.