Sept. 7, 2007

KIGALI, RWANDA – Rwanda's reputation as a producer of top-quality specialty coffee took a quantum leap with the results of its first-ever Golden Cup national competition held Aug. 28-31, said event organizers.

"Rwanda just keeps hitting coffee ‘home runs'," said Dr. Tim Schilling, director of the Sustaining Partnerships to enhance Rural Enterprise and Agribusiness Development project, also known as SPREAD, which sponsored the competition.

"For the past six years, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Texas A&M University System and many project partners have been working to help Rwanda make its mark in the world's specialty coffee market," said Schilling, who has lived in Rwanda since 2001. "I think it's safe to say that Rwanda's time has come."

"Less than a decade ago, there was almost no Rwandan specialty coffee being sold because it was considered extremely poor quality by the international market," he said. "Today, Rwandan specialty coffee is being sought and bought by some of the most prestigious coffee companies in the world."

Community Coffee, Groundwork Coffee, Thousand Hills Coffee, Counter Culture Coffee, Howell Select Coffees, Union Coffee Roasters (London), Intelligentsia Coffee, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Starbucks Coffee are among the approximately 30 wholesale roasters now buying Rwandan coffees produced with help from the SPREAD project, he said.

The competition was held as a means to spotlight the remarkable resurgence of the Rwandan coffee industry and to showcase Rwanda as a world-class specialty coffee producer, Schilling said. It also served as a "trial run" for Rwanda to host the highly regarded Cup of Excellence international coffee competition and auction in 2008.

"About 140 Rwandan coffees were originally selected by coffee-washing stations throughout the country as potential 2007 Rwandan Golden Cup competitors," Schilling said. "A pre-selection process narrowed the field to 101 coffees from which 60 were ultimately selected for the competition."

At a post-competition auction, Intelligentsia Coffee of Chicago and Stumptown Coffee of Portland made a record bid for the competition's highest-rated coffee. The coffee, which was selected to compete by the Tuzamurekawa Cooperative washing station in the country's Gakenke district, sold for $25 per pound.

The wholesale price for most specialty coffees in the international coffee market is under $2 per pound, so $25 per pound is a "stellar" price for any specialty coffee, Schilling said.

"Those six 60-kilo bags of the top-rated specialty coffee from the competition sold for more than what the average container load – 300 bags – of regular Rwandan coffee brought in 2001," he said.

Coffee is a major export for Rwanda, and that country's enhanced reputation as a specialty coffee provider and the higher prices such coffees command in the world market will significantly benefit the Rwandan economy, Schilling added.

"This is a vivid demonstration to prove to the international buying market that Rwanda can compete with other famous, well-regarded coffee-growing countries," said Geoff Watts, vice president and green-coffee buyer for Intelligentsia Coffee.

"In our 150 years in the business, we have never seen prices as high as $25 per pound for any African coffee," said Maxime Christen of Schluter Trading Company of Nyon, Switzerland. "This is a great achievement ... producers are beginning to see some spectacular rewards for all their hard work."

A new cupping laboratory, a facility for assessing coffee taste and quality, located about 10 miles from Butare, served as the venue for the 2007 Rwandan Golden Cup. An international jury of 18 coffee experts scored the coffees using a strict protocol, eliminating coffees with the lowest scores until only 10 coffees remained.

Five of the 10 winning coffees earned a score of at least 90 out of 100 for quality and taste as evaluated by the jury. These five coffees also received the competition's presidential award.

The Tuzamurekawa Cooperative coffee received a score of 93.41 from judges who came to Rwanda from as far away as Tokyo, London and Seattle. The other four coffees scoring 90 or higher were submitted by MIG Ltd. and KOAKAKA Cooperative washing stations in Nyamagabe, the Kayijuka Alphonse station in Nyamasheke and the UCAR Kamonyi Coop station in Kamonyi.

"I was proud to participate in this event that signifies Rwanda's transition into one of the elite coffee-producing countries in the world," said Peter Giuliano, coffee director for Counter Culture Coffee in Durham, N.C., a competition juror who bought several of the winning coffees.

"This is a great day for Rwanda coffee," said Ephrem Niyonsaba, director general of the Rwanda National Coffee Board, who attended the competition's award ceremony on Aug. 31 at the Mille Collines Hotel in Kigali. "The economic impact of higher coffee prices has already transformed the country's economy and is sure to continue."

The award ceremony was attended by more than 300 people, including Rwanda's Minister of Commerce.

"The success of the Golden Cup competition is a success for Rwandan coffee growers and for Rwanda," added Schilling, who is also an international programs coordinator at the Norman E. Borlaug Institute for International Agriculture in College Station. "It also represents the fruition of several years of project efforts toward rebuilding and improving the Rwandan coffee industry."

The SPREAD project is an agreement between USAID and A&M's Texas Agricultural Experiment Station through the Borlaug Institute, Schilling said. The project focuses on high-value crop development, particularly within the coffee industry. It also addresses ways to increase Rwanda's agricultural capacity and market its agricultural products internationally.

"The project further expands years of previous efforts between academia, governmental and non-governmental agencies, agriculture industry groups, the international coffee industry, and humanitarian groups and organizations to benefit Rwandan agriculture and the Rwandan people," Schilling said.

"Like other USAID/SPREAD project efforts, we hope this helps improve the income and quality of life for Rwandan farmers, he said.

"Less than 10 years ago, many Rwandan farmers were uprooting coffee trees because nobody wanted to buy it," said Linda Cleboski, program development coordinator at the Borlaug Institute.

"This year, coffee washing stations all over Rwanda were able to select an impressive number of their coffees to compete in the Golden Cup, and the winners of the competition were able to receive excellent – even record – prices for their product," she said.

Cleboski recognized Michigan State University, the National University of Rwanda, the Alliance for Coffee Excellence, the East African Fine Coffee Association, HORIZON, MISOZI, OCIR Café, Ernst & Young and RWASHOSCCO, Rwanda's sole specialty coffee exporter, for their role in making the Golden Cup competition a success.