Bukidnon coffee from Malaybalay and Maramag bagged awards during the first “cupping” competition in the Philippines, the Philippine Coffee Board, Inc. (PCBI) revealed.
Respectively, during the Kape Pilipino Green Coffee Quality Competition, coffee produced by Inhandig Tribal Multi Purpose Cooperative (ITMPC) of Malaybalay City won in the Arabic Category while Kape Maramag topped the Robusta category.
“The two winners will be sending representatives to Seattle, Washington this April for the Specialty Coffee Association of America (SCAA) expo,” PCBI reported.
Moreover, PCBI highlighted that the Bukidnon coffee can increase price in the specialty coffee market.
Competitors came from the Cordillera Administrative Region up to Sulu. There are 78 samples that are submitted in the competition.
Chit Juan, PCBI president and co-chair, said that coffee beans can be considered “specialty” if they attain a score of 80.
“The winning Arabica coffee scored 85.84 points while the Robusta got 83.75 from judges, among them international experts from the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI). The panel of judges was headed by Samuel Gurel of Torch Coffee, which is helping empower coffee farmers with trainings,” Mindanao Authority Development Association (MinDA) News mentioned.
“It’s a scale up to 100 where trained palates called Q graders taste the coffee, smell the grounds, the brew and slurp as much as they can to describe its ‘notes’. Notes are the reminders of floral, caramel, chocolate, spice, fruits that a grader may associate the taste and smell with. It can also be earthy, grassy or simply unacceptable as a fine coffee,”Juan mentioned.
One of the international judges, Mbula Musao of Kenya, emphasized that the taste of the coffee reminded her of Ethiopian Sidamo.
She noted that the winning coffee of the Robusta category reminded her of the fine coffees of Uganda.
PCBI president commended the winning coffees because these were naturally processed.
“This means it was picked ripe, dried in the sun and allowed to develop its flavors naturally…. That shows we can do good coffee even without water in the processing. Just picking ripe and drying well,” she added.
Source: Bukidnon coffees win in PHL’s first ever ‘cupping’ competition