FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MISSOULA, Mt. (November 29, 2005) – A small select group of Brazilian coffee farmers are still celebrating their win at the most recent Cup of Excellence awards ceremony held in Pocos de Caldas on November 18, 2005. Only 36 coffees won the prestigious award out of over 550 that were entered. These coffees had been judged at least five times by different juries and had come out on top in every cupping.

A thirty-two member international jury from over 12 different countries arrived in Pocos de Caldas on November 13, 2005 to judge the semi-final winners during the last phase of the competition process. During the final top ten ranking the obvious first place coffee was described as being extremely sweet, almost like bing cherry or tropical fruit sweetness with round, complex, brightness and a smooth body. Brazil’s finest coffees have been treasured historically for their sweet, soft acidity. Known for years as coffee that was especially suitable for espresso, many of the Brazil winning coffees are now loved by coffee connoisseurs as single origin drip coffee.

It was apparent based on the number of matching custom t-shirts in the audience at the awards ceremony that many of farmers were from the same growing area. At the end of the ceremony over half of the final awards had been given to the ecstatic growers from the Carman de Minas region. The timing of the yearly rains in this particular region had enhanced the already great coffee so much that the number one winner received the highest score ever awarded in a Cup of Excellence competition. Francisco Isidora Dias Pereira, the young winning farmer, was smothered in the congratulatory arms of his cousin, other family members, and regional friends as he gathered up his number one award on stage.

This valuable coffee and all of the other winning Cup of Excellence coffees will be sold to the highest bidders during an international Internet auction held after the holidays on January 10, 2006, with the proceeds going to the winning farmers. This is the seventh such coffee competition to be held in Brazil, and this year the cuppings were held very close to the location where the program was invented in 1999. Since then, the Cup of Excellence program has expanded to multiple countries and is now widely regarded as the premier coffee program worldwide for exemplary farmers and specialty roasters.

For more information about the winning farms, their jury scores, farm descriptions, and about the Cup of Excellence program log on to www.cupofexcellence.org.