DARRIN DANIEL Alliance for Coffee Excellence, Inc. – Portland

– When did the project Cup of Excellence begin and what is the story behind?
The Cup of Excellence began in 1999 in Brazil and the vision then is the same as to day; Discover and Reward Excellence. George Howell and Susie Spindler, the founders of CoE, realized that many producers around the world were not able to be even identified for their farms and the flavor and quality that represented who they were as producers. By creating the CoE, we are able to put together a competition and then later an online auction, to be able to reward producers through the direct trade (before the term was even created) via the winning roaster being directly connected to the winning farmer.