FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

El Salvador Plans Bright Coffee Future With Cup Of Excellence® Results
Winning farmer gains recognition and long term market relationships

(July 3, 2008) MISSOULA, MT – As El Salvador coffee farmers prepare to ship their award winning Cup of Excellence® coffees across the globe they are basking in the recognition that their coffees are considered world class by any standard. The country enjoyed a record breaking prices for this years’ Cup of Excellence auction and with the average price per pound well over $5.00lb the country cemented its quality reputation.

A group of roasters successfully bought the first place coffee, La Illusión, for $20.10lb on June 5, 2008. “To have won the Cup of Excellence has been a tremendous satisfaction at the personal, family and working level,” explains Ernesto “Netto” Menedez owner of La Illusión, which fetched the highest price ever paid for a COE El Salvador coffee. “It is a recognition of excellence and the cherry over a pie baked with lots of effort from many people- from the growing harvesting, quality control phases to reaching the milling phase,” he continued.

Ernesto Menedez, is a fourth generation coffee grower from the Apaneca-Ilamatepec mountain range and inherited the passion and love for coffee from his father who passed away in 1995. He explains, “I am very proud of being able to help improve the awareness of El Salvador as a high quality coffee producer through competing in this event. This has given me the chance to break language barriers and expand very special relationships with several buyers like Mercanta The Coffee Hunters (UK), Has Bean Coffee (UK), Bolling Coffee (UK), Rocket Coffee (New Zealand), and 49th Parallel Roasters (Canada). It has given me the opportunity to value everyone’s work and to improve my workers wages, achieving an extra motivation for them, thus changing several aspects of my life, and also that of our workers.”

His farm placed 8th in the 2007 Cup of Excellence competition and the extra money from last year’s auction helped him create a small wet mill on the farm. “It also motivated me to continue to improve processing techniques and the quality of my coffee,” Ernesto exclaimed.

Stephen Leighton, a coffee roaster and owner of Has Bean Coffee in the UK has bough La Ilusión in 2007 and has built a long term relationship with the farm, “It was great to be working with a professional who understood the demands of today’s markets. He was so helpful with continuing communication and with sending farm information and photos that help to market these wonderful coffees as well,” Stephen mentioned. “I was lucky enough to be in San Salvador for the 2008 COE awards ceremony and was so pleased to see Ernesto deservedly win the top award for this year. He has become a partner in our success and hopefully us part of his. We have already agreed to continue this partnership in 2009, and hope a partnership long into the future,” Stephen concluded.

Since it’s beginnings in 1999, the Cup of Excellence® program has hosted programs in Brazil, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Bolivia and Colombia with Rwanda being added for later in 2008. The Cup of Excellence program is managed by the non-profit Alliance for Coffee Excellence, Inc, The state of the art Cup of Excellence auction has been managed since 2002 in partnership with CommoditiesOne, a leading software development firm. For more information about the Cup of Excellence program, or to become a member log on to www.cupofexcellence.org.