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Reform of international auction of high-quality coffee and raw beans

Published: 2026-06-09 Author: World Gafei

Last Updated: 2026/06/09, Not long ago, The Alliance for Coffee Excellence explained that our coffee auction had been going on for 16 years, and it was time to make a change. In 16 years, the organization that promotes the spread of boutique coffee has expanded the auction from Brazil to Burundi. The annual auction calendar is arranged from January to December, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico and Nicaragua

Not long ago, The Alliance for Coffee Excellence explained, "our coffee auction has been going on for 16 years, and it's time for a change."

In 16 years, the organization that promotes the spread of boutique coffee has expanded the auction from Brazil to Burundi. The annual auction calendar is arranged from January to December, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Rwanda and Burundi.

In next year's auction, the list will only be Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Honduras. The Alliance for Coffee Excellence said this is a temporary measure for 2016 and hopes to return to the current auction scale in 2017.

In order for coffee farmers to earn more income in the entire industry chain, to maintain a stable quality of high-quality coffee, and to be worthy of the money paid by buyers, they will focus on "improving the existing auction system", "updating existing evaluation standards", "developing e-cup test forms" and "solving the problem of coffee transportation after auction".

It takes a lot of effort to achieve these four goals, which is why The Alliance for Coffee Excellence wants to reduce the size of the auction next year, especially by halting its fledgling African projects, Burundi and Rwanda.

Basically, some of the four goals that The Alliance for Coffee Excellence is trying to achieve are pain points that need to be addressed urgently.

"improve the existing auction system" online simulation trial (if you are qualified to bid, you can conduct a simulated auction in advance for a certain auction). On the whole, it seems reasonable.

In an anonymous auction, the starting price is usually set at $4 / lb, with a minimum bid of $0.1 / lb; the auction will continue until all coffees are bid; after all coffees are auctioned, there will be a three-minute countdown, at which time all coffees can still accept new bids; once the countdown is over, the online auction ends.

The Alliance for Coffee Excellence wants to adjust this area probably because of possible offline early tandem bidding events. In the international auction community, the raw bean buyers involved have been counted over and over again, just a few big companies, and it is entirely possible for them to exploit the loophole in this auction system.

Update the existing evaluation criteria. COE's evaluation standard is based on SCAA/CQI 's cup test standard, regardless of whether your cup test table is SCAA or COE, because good coffee is good coffee on any cup meter, and so is bad coffee.

"to solve the problem of coffee transportation after auction", at least we have to solve the problem of shipping to China. Chinese people are getting richer, and more and more individuals can participate in it.

"developing electronic cup test forms" they should have done this work a long time ago. The world has evolved to the extent that e-reading is no less enjoyable than paper books, who specializes in printing cup test forms for A4? Not environmentally friendly, not portable, not easy to share.

Since the beginning of this year, the coffee auction cup test promotion activities in China have been very lively, and have been able to drink a lot of coffee at auction, including COE, BOP (Best of Panama), and the overall quality of the auction coffee is worth discussing. At this time, it seems that The Alliance for Coffee Excellence to stop the pace of rapid expansion is very wise, to improve quality is the fundamental to get a high price, otherwise everything is a bubble.

Don't be intimidated by the name of COE. Coffee is the ultimate drink.

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