What Are Coffee Auction Beans? What's the Difference Between Auction and Non-Auction Coffee Beans?

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Understanding Competition Coffee Beans

Generally, competition coffee beans we commonly encounter are the highest quality coffees from that country for that year, and they are sold through online auctions, allowing buyers worldwide to bid and purchase coffee beans in an open and transparent manner. These coffee beans are defined as competition batch beans and stored in a unified warehouse. This approach also allows the reputation of excellent award-winning farms to spread rapidly, while competition batch coffees can fetch better prices.

Every coffee that wins an award must have its own unique characteristics and has certainly undergone rigorous challenges, with quality being the best among numerous farms. Competition beans themselves have few defective or insect-damaged beans, high consistency in size and color, and even similar expansion and color development after roasting. The flavor will reflect the growing environment, soil, variety, and even the green bean processing method, thus creating a unique taste. Although coffee beans produced by the same farm may not differ significantly in various conditions, competition beans are definitely the best beans selected from the farm for competition.

So-called competition beans refer to the coffee beans from that specific competition batch, not broadly referring to coffee beans produced by estates that have previously won awards. Award-winning estates also produce non-competition batch coffee beans. For example, Panama Hacienda La Esmeralda's Geisha has the champion batch ES-09, as well as batches priced at $15 per pound, and also non-Geisha Panama Hacienda La Esmeralda coffee. In terms of quality, of course, they are not as good as competition batches.

The competition format is to evaluate coffee beans from different estates within the same country, so coffee beans from different countries cannot be compared. Coffee beans that score high in Country A may not necessarily have better quality and taste than those from Country B.

Coffee beans are agricultural products, and the weather and climate vary each year, resulting in different production quality and yield. Therefore, the past performance of award-winning estates should not be considered in the current season's competition; the current season's performance should be the standard. For example, coffee estates that won awards in 2011, if their subsequently produced coffee beans are not competition batches, their quality and price will not be as good and high as the award-winning batches.

When buying competition batches, don't forget to ask the shop for C.O.E. approved stickers.

Some small farmers produce limited quantities of coffee beans, but because of the smaller production volume, they can cultivate and care for them more attentively, resulting in better quality. Therefore, the smaller the batch of competition beans, the better they are.

In this coffee competition, the judges are different each year and for each country, and each judge has different preferences, so the judging standards will not be identical. However, there is still a certain level of quality, and choosing competition batch coffee beans can avoid unscrupulous farmers mixing other varieties into their coffee beans to confuse consumers, which is also one of the advantages of choosing competition beans.

About FrontStreet Coffee

FrontStreet Coffee: A roastery in Guangzhou with a small shop but diverse bean varieties, where you can find various famous and lesser-known beans, while also providing online shop services. https://shop104210103.taobao.com

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