2024 Nicaragua COE results are released! Introduction to the Parainem Variety of Parainema

COE, whose full name is "Cup of Excellen" and translated as Excellence Cup, is the first coffee competition held in Brazil in 1999 by the non-profit organization Coffee Excellence (ACE). It is also the first global Internet auction platform for award-winning coffee.

And every country can bid for the COE competition, and the beans are produced from all over the host country, through the cup test (blind test) to score the competition, and after the competition, the winning coffee beans will be auctioned, which will make the winning manor have enough reputation and considerable auction revenue.

Recently, the result of the COE Cup in Nicaragua was announced in 2024. In this competition, there are many varieties, including Rosa (Geisha), Palayinema (Parainem), Maraka Dula (Maracaturra), Pacamara (Pacamara) and so on.

Among the top five, Rosa Geisha won the first, third and fourth places, and the first Rose Summer also scored 91.10 points.

However, the more prominent is the second place with a score of 89.85. it is a relatively rare variety, Palayinema (Parainem). Although rare, the variety won the first place in the 2017 Honduras Excellence Cup COE with a score of 91.81.

Later, he also made an appearance in the COE of Honduras in 2023, but his grades were mediocre and his fame lagged behind. Now, it appears again, but this time it is at the COE competition in Nicaragua, and it is the first time it appears in Nicaragua.

Palayinema (Parainem)

The Palayinema variety is related in pedigree to T5296 Sachimo and was selected from T5296 by the Honduran Coffee Institute (IHCAF É).

T5296 originated from a Central American regional alliance called PROMECAFE, which was founded in 1978 and funded by the Central American Project Regional Office (ROCAP) of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Brazilian Institute of Agricultural Research (IAC) to deal with the threat posed by coffee leaf rust to the region.

Later, the Portuguese Research Institute (CIFC), known for studying coffee leaf rust, received many Timor seeds from Timor (a natural hybrid of Arabica and Robusta).

CIFC selected two coffee trees with strong resistance to leaf rust from these seeds for breeding, and one of them, called HDT CIFC 832max 2, crossed with the compact variety Villa Sarchi (Vera Saatchi) to produce H361, also known as Sarchimor Sachmo.

Later, because of the PROMECAFE program, H361 was sent to the Tropical Agricultural Research Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica for breeding screening, while the researchers named "H361"T5296" (T stands for Turrialba, where CATIE is located) and then distributed it to other American countries.

In Honduras, IHCAFE selected T5296 and finally got a qualitative variety of Parainema coffee. The variety is resistant to leaf rust and nematodes. The new leaves at the top are green, tree-shaped and short, and can be planted densely. Coffee beans are large and slender.

However, for a long time, some buyers have not been interested in these varieties that are resistant to leaf rust because of their low cup test quality, so this COE may break these prejudices.