Last month, Qianjie shared with everyone the scoring system of cup testing, among which we briefly mentioned COE. In daily life, the word COE also often appears on the labels of some beans. This immediately aroused everyone’s curiosity: What is COE?
COE
“COE”, fully named “Cup of Excellence”, translated as “Excellence Cup”. It is an event first held in Brazil in 1999 by the non-profit organization “Excellence Coffee Organization” (ACE). It can be said that it is the most well-known and authoritative competition for high-quality coffee green beans in the world!
Each country can bid to hold the COE competition, and the “participants” of the COE competition are the beans from the entire country where the event is held! And the beans that win in the competition will win enough reputation for the estate in the auction after the event, as well as considerable auction proceeds.
The huge proceeds of the auction have filled coffee farmers with the motivation to cultivate high-quality coffee, and we can also enjoy even better coffee. It can be said that COE perfectly explains to coffee farmers the truth that “hard work will pay off”!
The scoring system of COE
Let’s talk about the scoring system of COE again! The cup testing score of COE has some differences from the scoring system of SCA, and it is derived from the scoring system of SCA! We can move to the article “SCA Scoring Items” to learn the details of the SCA scoring system! And the cup testing of COE is four cups for each sample, and the scoring form is as follows:
The two are roughly the same, and the main difference lies in the differences in individual details! In the scoring items of COE, the dry/wet fragrance is no longer included in the total score, and the scoring of cleanliness will be more strict! The fullness is directly changed to the mouth feel (Mouth feel), which not only evaluates the fullness, but also whether it is smooth, whether there is astringency, etc., in order to be able to score from more diverse perspectives!
And the evaluation of the flavor is referred to the new version of the flavor wheel, and the judges can make more accurate and more concrete evaluations (finally, there is a blank column for description)! Then, COE has abandoned the item of consistency!
COE competition system
The COE competition system in each country is somewhat different, and we take the COE in Ethiopia in 2020 as an example! The entire Ethiopian COE event is composed of three parts: the pre-selection phase, the national jury phase, and the international jury phase.
Pre-selection phase
The judges in the pre-selection phase are all professional judges from the domestic country where the event is held, and the general number will be around 12 to 18 people. They will conduct strict reviews on the sample beans participating in the competition, from the degree of roasting, to the cup testing process, and so on. Only the beans whose cup testing scores reach more than 85 points in the pre-selection phase are eligible to advance to the next link of the competition.
National jury phase
Also using professional judges from the domestic country where the event is held, this phase mainly re-screens the beans that have advanced from the pre-selection phase! The beans that win in this round will enter the final international jury phase!
International jury phase
The judging panel in this phase is composed of international cup testers, and all the participating sample beans will be labeled with a random number, and only the auditor knows the number corresponding to the beans. After obtaining the number, the beans will start to be blindly tested by the judging panel!
Finally, the ones whose scores reach more than 87 points will be rated as COE bidding batches, and the remaining beans, although not as good as the bidding batches, the scores will generally be above 85 points, and these beans belong to the national winning batches (National winners)!
But whether it is the COE bidding batch or the national winning batch, they ultimately need to be obtained through the auction approach, which is also the most important link that coffee farmers focus on! So, when we buy beans, the COE that we can occasionally see on the label may be the “players” who have won in the competition~ As for why it is possible, it is because some are COE “same batch” rather than COE bidding batch~
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