Fresh Cup

JUL 2012

Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.

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Spindler defends the number of coffees that make the cut in each COE: "I know it can be difficult for small roasters who are wearing a lot of hats to evaluate 20 to 30 coffees a week before the auction. But we don't want to limit the choices too much. If I walked into a restaurant with 25 choices on the menu, it would take me awhile to decide what I want. But I don't necessarily want you to cut my choices down." For its part, COE—which charges roasters $195 to receive samples for each country's auction—has over the years upped its scoring cutoff (to achieve COE status a coffee must now score 85, compared with the original number of 82). That effort has helped keep the number of coffees manageable while maintaining a variety of coffees in every auction. "We'll keep raising the cut- off as more coffees improve in quality, so we don't get to 40 or 50 coffees per country," says Spindler. "Ideally we'll find a way to support coffees that don't quite make the cut, because, all around, these coffees are incredible." A positive aspect of the auction setup is that everyone in the industry gets a shot, if they want it. The system levels the playing field for buyers, along with the farmers. THE BENEFITS OF BIDDING Despite the large number of samples he must deal with before an auction, Mike Perry, owner of Klatch Coffee in Southern California, is a longtime fan of the system. "The research has been done for me, and I get access to great coffees that I wouldn't otherwise," he says. "It only costs $195 to try the best coffees in a given country, and I don't have to leave my hometown to do it." Sanders of Origins Organic agrees that $195 is reasonable, but he says he never has a shortage of samples to taste. "Paying $195 for something you may never have in your inventory, and adding the labor involved with two days of roasting and a few people cup- ping—that makes it more like a couple thousand bucks." Perry, however, sees promotional value in buying auction coffees. "It helps me stand out as an elite roaster of the best coffees in the world," he says. But he sympathizes with those turned off by the time commitment. "We roast in two shifts, so sample roasting doesn't set us back much," he says. "I love cupping and educating my staff about these coffees, so I don't mind." Of the bidding, he says, "It's tough that you're stuck in front of a computer screen all day. That's the only bad part. Otherwise, everything is great." Another positive aspect of the auction setup is that everyone in the industry gets a shot, if they want it. The system levels the playing field for buyers, along with the farmers. Rachel Peterson, co-owner of Panama's Hacienda la Esmeralda (of the Esmeralda Special auction), says that if her farm didn't use the auction system, it would sell to fewer roasters. "We would most logically offer our coffee to roasters depending on what we value—senior- ity, people we've known the longest or who paid the most at some point," she says. "The auction provides a broader base of buyers and opens it up, instead of us imposing our own rules." EXCLUSIVITY PROTECTION? Given the sizeable competition for the consumer's coffee dollar, it can be a little scary to put your neck out and pay $10, $20 or $50 a pound for green coffee. So when you buy an auction coffee, you want to know it's the only such coffee that can carry that auction's label, its cache and its hefty price tag. But other coffees from the same area will certainly make it to market, and some may be mar- keted as "from a COE-winning farm" or "region." This may or may not devalue your coffee. In his second year bidding in Best of Panama, Sanders bought a Geisha at $8.60 a pound. But he soon found another 600 bags of the same coffee had been sold at $2.60. He hasn't bought from an auction since. "I believe I paid the right price for a great coffee, but I don't think I was protected as a buyer," he says. "What I had wasn't unique or special, and I lost money on it. The broker did what he had to do and sold some coffee, but the auction platform wasn't clear." Sanders still buys Panamas. "Everything has been smoothed over surrounding that incident, and I still believe in the idea of auctions," he says. "I just don't participate." Peterson says auctions can't fully police what anyone says or does, but she stresses that auctions do try to offer as much protec- tion as possible. "Only those who bought in that auction can claim it, and any coffee sold outside of the auction is not the same, for the simple fact that it wasn't entered in the auction," she says. She remembers having to ask a roaster a few years back to stop calling a certain coffee Best of Panama. "It was probably a similar coffee, but it wasn't in the auction," she says. "What goes into auction is always what's best at that moment, but coffee could be harvested on the same farm a month later, and while it's probably great stuff, it can't be sold as BoP." Perry adds, "You can never stop someone else from doing wrong and promoting a coffee as something it's not. An honest roaster might just make a mistake, perhaps thinking it was the same. While I'm sure it happens, I don't think it's happening too much." Despite the difficulties associated with auctions, they remain a clear way to connect buyers to farmers, and they certainly spot- light the quality side of the business. Many buyers love them, and I've recently started thinking about dipping my toe in the water again. Maybe I'll throw a few auction coffees into my offering list and see what happens. But I also know that, thanks to close relationships with importers, the traditional channels aren't bad or broken, and they will remain an important part of how Jones Coffee sources beans. Julie Beals contributed reporting to this article. freshcup.com July 2012 55

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