FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Missoula, MT. (November 1, 2005) - Making up for a small crop and internal conflicts that have plagued Bolivian coffee this year, 19 farmers were awarded the prestigious Cup of Excellence award at a ceremony held on Friday October 28th in Santa Cruz. Six of the coffees received the prestigious presidential award which indicates a score over 90 points on the last day of ranking.

“Presidential awards are extremely difficult to attain”, explained Susie Spindler, managing Director of The Cup of Excellence program, at the packed ceremony. “To have an international group of professional cuppers from different parts of the world all score this many coffees in the 90 point range is very rare and,” she continued “knowing that these great coffees exist is the reason the jurors will keep coming back to find them”.

After a standing ovation the winning farmer, Juan de Dios Blanco took the microphone and expressed his pride and great honor to be representing the finest Bolivian coffee. This coffee scored 93.52 points out of 100 and was described by the jury as being very clean and delicately complex with an orange-honeysuckle aroma and a tangy lemon flavor. Close behind in score at 93.10 points the second place coffee was described as more dark chocolate and black cherry with great aftertaste, a silky mouthfeel and intense sweetness. The second place coffee was submitted by a group of farmers- Celso Mayta, Eusebio Marca and Lucio Camiño will all share the award and the auction proceeds.

Sixteen of the winners were grown at 1600 meters or higher making these coffees extremely high grown even for specialty coffee standards. According to the jury these altitudes and the Andean microclimates are the variables that create the unique and superb flavors found in these coffees. Until recently most roasters were unaware that Bolivian small farmers could produce fine coffees of this great quality.

The international jury that scored the final rounds met all of the farmers on Friday afternoon during several roundtable sessions. They exchanged questions and information about the challenges facing Bolivian farmers as well as the marketplace situation. In several cases emotional meetings took place between last years Cup of Excellence winners and the roasters that bought the coffee at auction.

The 19 Bolivian Cup of Excellence winning coffees will be auctioned on December 1, 2005. For all of the scoring and descriptions of the winning coffees or to register for samples and the auction, log on to www.cupofexcellence.org The Cup of Excellence is owned by the non-profit Alliance for Coffee Excellence, Inc.. In addition to Bolivia ACE manages the program for Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras.