Competition Series

The Cup of Excellence is the most rigorous green-coffee competition in the world: national juries and an international panel cup each lot blind, over multiple rounds, and only the highest-scoring coffees of a country's entire harvest earn a ranking. Jordan Dabov has judged at Cup of Excellence internationally since 2013 — the only Bulgarian juror to do so — which is why DABOV can bring these exact lots home.

What's on the table right now: El Salvador COE #3 2024 (also Vol. 5 of our Star Coffees Collection), Ethiopia COE #20 2024, COE ETHIOPIA #3, COE NICARAGUA #2, COE SALVADOR #4, and BoR RWANDA #16 from the Best of Rwanda program. Each number is that coffee's actual placement in its national competition — a ranking earned in blind cupping, not a marketing flourish.

Why buy Cup of Excellence coffee?

Because it's the closest thing coffee has to provenance you can verify. These are single farms, single harvests, judged by people whose job is to find flaws. Expect vivid, competition-style profiles best explored with filter brewing, and expect them to sell through — winning lots are tiny by nature, and when a placement sells out, that exact coffee is gone for good.