Trabocca of the Netherlands will hold The Ethiopian Cup Ethiopian Cup Coffee auction

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Trabocca, the Dutch raw bean trading company that promotes the Red Cherry project, is preparing to hold an Ethiopian cup coffee competition, a coffee raw bean competition & an auction plan to select the best quality coffee in the coffee birthplace.

The Amsterdam-based raw bean trader, which maintains close purchasing ties in Ethiopia, launched an auction called Operation Cherry Red (Red Cherry Project) last year. Trabocca founder Menno Simons said in an announcement shared with the Daily Coffee News that the new name of the plan is "resonates more with the identity of the people behind the coffee (more empathy with the people behind coffee)."

As a result of the nationwide relaxation of the previous restriction that all raw coffee beans must be sold through the Ethiopian Mercantile Exchange (ecx), Ethiopia's auction last year resulted in a premium of $996,292, which was directly subsidized to farmers, far exceeding the initial pre-sale price of $5 per pound, which greatly protected the income of farmers.

With the auction scheduled for Thursday, June 27, 2019, Trabocca is currently organizing an international judges' cup test competition to be held from May 22 to 24. The jury will include: Rubens Gardelli (Italy) of Gardelli Specialty Coffees; Anette Moldvaer of Katy Keisling,Square Mile Coffee Roasters (UK) of Ryan Knapp,Stumptown Coffee Roasters (USA) of Madcap Coffee (USA); Myung Geun Kim of Coffee Libre (Korea); Scott Tedder of Bonanza Coffee (Germany); Lee Jong Hoon of Jose Aguilar,Coffee Graffiti (Korea) of Monmouth Coffee (UK) and Lex Wenneker of Friedhats Coffee Roasters (Netherlands).

In 2018, the result of the auction was 34 traceable Ethiopian micro-batches of coffee beans from 12 different producers, with a minimum bid of $7.50 per pound, of which nine were at least $15 per pound. The winner was a raw coffee bean from Tibebu Roba, a small farmer in Gedeb, which won the highest auction price of $38.50 per pound.

"the Ethiopian Cup is part of Trabocca's mission to provide the best raw coffee beans in Ethiopia to roasters around the world, while contributing to the prosperity of the coffee industry," Simmons said. We believe that the auction premium can be used as a tool to empower growers. Especially at a time when the price of international coffee is at a 23-year low, we think it is necessary to provide an alternative. Auctions like the Ethiopian cup are not the whole solution to the multifaceted problem of coffee prices, but they give Ethiopian coffee growers the recognition they deserve. "

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