Oser Communications Group

2 1 February 2019 SNACKING NEWS BY GREG GONZALES Retailers who look to awards and prizes as a guide to what's best in the world of specialty food are likely to no- tice that, once again, Ethiopian coffees dominated the cat- egory in this year's Good Food Awards. It's no fluke; over half the category's finalists this year consisted of Ethiopian varieties, and 50 of 86 total GFAs in this category have gone to coffees of the same origin. Even though there are plenty of reasons roasters and judges and coffee afi- cionados alike prefer Ethiopian coffees, the domi- nance of Ethiopian coffees in this awards competition has become self-perpetuat- ing, despite continued efforts from the GFA's coffee com- mittee to level the playing field for other origins. "That's a big reason peo- ple are submitting Ethiopi- ans, is because of the proven success of them in this com- petition ― and it's definitely one of the reasons I submit- ted an Ethiopian to the competition," said Rob Bathe, Owner of Folly Coffee Roasters, a GFA finalist. "I talked to Tony Querio [Head Roaster] of Spyhouse Coffee, and he said if you're a roaster and you're looking to have suc- cess in the Good Food Awards, and you look at the past, and you see how many Ethiopian coffees are being awarded, you'd be almost foolish not to submit at least one Ethiopian coffee to the awards." Even though the awards have allowed for two submis- sions per brand, the rules changed this year so that each submission had to come from a different origin. As a re- sult, there were 16 Ethiopian finalists this year, compared to 20 last year. However, Sandra Elisa Loofbourow, co-Chair on the GFA's coffee committee and Tasting Room Director at Royal Coffee, says that wasn't the only rules change for 2019. The awards also introduced "citizen judges," she said, or non-industry people who might prefer different flavor profiles than a coffee professional. "There is some- thing to be said for calibration within an industry, and the specialty coffee industry does prefer certain flavor pro- files, especially people who have been trained as cuppers and tasters," said Loofbourow. "They might have a pref- erence for certain coffees. We try to get a diverse panel of judges from different regions of the U.S. and different por- tions of our industry precisely because we don't want the judges to have a distinct preference for one coffee or an- other." Even so, Loofbourow and a number of GFA finalists say that Ethiopian coffee has a number of advantages that tend to place it higher than coffees from other ori- gins. Ethiopian coffees tend to land on U.S. soil by July or August, and the cupping ceremony is in September, so those beans tend to be fresher than others that have been stored in warehouses for several months, "slowly aging and losing some of their sparkling acidity," said Loof- bourow. "The thing that factored in for Folly was, as you're choosing coffees, fresh-crop coffees tend to cup a lot bet- ter ― especially when you're blind cupping and evaluat- ing for taste," said Bathe. "My hypothesis would be that if that competition was at a different time of the year, you'd probably see increased presence in other origins that have fresh-crop landing around that time." On top of that, Ethiopia coffee has a gold-stan- dard reputation in the cof- fee world, known as the birthplace of coffee, which grows wild there. "I was talking to a pro- ducer from Brazil, we were talking about Ethiopian coffee, and he was blown away, speech- less, that Ethiopian coffee grown wild can produce a coffee that is significantly better than he can," said Samuel Sabori, National Quality Control and Roasting Manager, and Buyer, for Intelligentsia Coffee, another GFA finalist. "It's kind of like asking why pinot noir is so great in Burgundy ― it developed there. Though not all Ethiopian beans are heirloom, it has a lot of genetic diver- sity that a lot of coffee-producing countries in the Amer- icas don't have." Nick Visconti, Founder of Drink Coffee Do Stuff, an- other GFA finalist, said Ethiopian coffees have a natural complexity of sugar and acidity that's totally unique, and that those characteristics are more pronounced on a cupping table. "I personally think there are incredible coffees that ought to be high- lighted from around the world," he said. "However, it's maybe a little easier to experience the nuances of an Ethiopian coffee than it may be to experience those same characteristics of a Latin or South American coffee. On one hand, Ethiopia produces some of the best coffees in the world, and on the other hand, it's just that they stand out compared to other cof- fees." Loofbourow said the GFAs took steps this year to mit- igate this particular problem, which she calls contextual cupping. "If you were to put a really outstanding washed Ethiopian coffee next to even a superb Guatemalan coffee, it's likely that the Ethiopian coffee would overshadow it. And it's not necessarily that the Ethiopian coffee is inherently better than the Guatemalan; it's that the Guatemalan would taste better paired with another Guatemalan coffee," she said. "This year, my co-Chair and I did origin- and processing- based cupping tables for the blind tasting, wherein we put all the Central American coffees together, all the South Americans and all the Indonesians and all the nat- ural Ethiopians and washed Ethiopians all on their own tables. As a result, we got a significant increase in non- Ethiopian coffees in the finalists list." So it's not as if GFA officials are unaware of the prob- lem. "It's a constant point of contention. Last year, after the tasting, there was a bit of an eruption on social media regarding this issue," said Loofbourow. "As co-Chair, I and my other co-Chair, Tovara Salley, are working really hard with the means we have to make this a fair and just event. And it's true that there's a prevalence of Ethiopian coffees, and it's true that there's only so much we can do about it, but we are implementing as many tools as we can to give all the coffees from all the roasters a fighting chance ― and make sure the finalists are some of the best coffees in the nation." But again, one of the biggest contributors to this issue is the self-perpetuating factor, that nearly half of all sub- missions are Ethiopian. If the industry as a whole de- cided to celebrate non-Ethiopian coffees by submitting two coffees from other regions, then by default there would be more winners from non-Ethiopian origins. However, then the world might miss out on fantastic coffees from the very birthplace of coffee. Therein lies the dilemma. "It's a collaborative effort, and I wonder if folks in our industry realize that it's within their power to help fix this problem," Loofbourow said. "I hope people who are in- terested in fixing this problem reach out to the coffee com- mittee, because we're looking for help!" Good Food Awards officials and next year's entrants might look to beer for an example of how to judge and submit coffees. Bathe, who used to sell and judge beer in the craft beer industry, ex- plained that beers are judged per specific style, where coffee is judged as one large category. "If I submit an IPA and a stout, those two beers are going to be judged very differently. When you submit a coffee, it's judged against one kind of scale, one platform," he said. Whatever the solution may be, it's still uncertain. "This is a tricky position to put a roaster in ― they obviously want to have at least the op- portunity to win a Good Food Award, and it feels like if you don't submit an Ethiopian coffee you're sort of negating any possibility of placing," Loofbourow said. Some ideas for next year, she added, include a sustain- ability committee to address certification requirements regarding Fair Trade and organic labels. "We don't cur- rently have a solution for that, but we are working on one," she said. "We're working actively to improve our system, because it's not perfect. There are flaws. ...We don't want to keep upheaving the rules, but we do want to keep improving the system." n Ethiopian Coffees Get Buzz at Good Food Awards

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