I slacked off after my quadruple header of Central Cup of Excellences (pl.) and never put the pictures up. Well, I don’t always make travelogues. If I take pictures I usually edit them, write something and put them up. But 4 competitions in a row (actually, 5 counting PanamaPanama coffee ranges from medium quality lower altitude farms to those at 1600 - 1800 meters centered in the area of Boquete in the Chirqui district near the... ...more) that’s just too much!
Anyway, Salvador was the second to last. We were sequestered at a resort on the coast, The Decameron . Sounds pretty nice, eh? Well, I like to be out and about more, and it was a little like prison (maybe a white collar prison).
In fact, there was torture involved: the entertainment. Things like mandatory dance contests and such … humiliating and embarrassing, and even worse because you are supposed to enjoy it, and you’re not.
Even more, you feel like a bad guest because you are not having fun. Anyway, after cuppingCupping is a method of tasting coffee by steeping grounds in separate cups for discrete amounts of ground coffee, to reveal good flavors and defects to their fullest.... ...more, there was a nice pool, and we played some fun beach volleyball – a good way to get excess caffeineAn alkaloidal compound that has a physiological effect on humans, and a bittering taste. It is found throughout the coffee plant but is more concentrated in the seed... ...more out of your system. Oh, the other problem: a bunch of US Coast Guard on leave came in, and made big fools of themselves … not all of them, but some of them.
They terrorized the staff, broke signs and mirrors, just the kind of things young drunk people do. Now, if we were off ion the coffee areas for the cupping, the chances of getting penned in with a bunch of drunk Coasties, and being forced to embarrass yourself in front of everyone for entertainment … well, chances would be slim.
Tim Chapdelain aims for with cup with a mouthload of spit. Isn’t cupping glamorous? Tim hails from Minnesota, wrks for Volcafe, and is none to take pause between his many long, entertaining, fabulations. El Salvador Mark Zwahl is a roaster from Lawrence Kansas, on both his first trip to origin and his forst Cup of Excellence. That is not an easy task. As an interesting subplot, he got West Nile right in his own Kansasian (?) backyard several years ago! El Salvador 
Ms Yuko from Times Club is one of the nicest, quietest cuppers, but when she likes a coffee she has no problem standing aginst the group and explaining its qualities! El Salvador Trish Skeie – I cam only hope I spelled her name correctly. Trish is the green coffee buyer for Zoka Coffee Roasters in Seattle, and one of the people I was really looking forward to meeting on this trip. She has years of roasting, barista, and green buying experience in both the US and Norway, and is one of the most down-to-earth people you will meet in coffee. But remember Trish, you owe me – I took the Hula bullet for you! El Salvador Mix a Kiwi and a Churasqeuria Brazil Style and you have Marco, New Zealander from Sao Paolo. He also plays some mean beach volleyball. El Salvador Cupping room madness at the Del Cameron Resort. All in all, what a great place to hold a coffee event. For those of us who know El Salvador, who have experience with the mills and the farms, it was a wonderful change. For first time jurors, well … it’s better when the event is held in the middle of coffee farms rather than on a resort-compound. The facilities were great for cupping though, and everything went very smoothly. If I don’t have a chance to mention it again, the roasting of the samples was PERFECT. El Salvador 
My cups, my cupping form, El Salvador Cup of Excellence 2006. I made a little face out of them. El Salvador The power switches for the mill equipment at Galicia Parque Acuatico. El Salvador The hand sorting room. The coffee is quite low grown so I am not sure what the point is of extra preparation. El Salvador Kentaro Maruyama, natural comedian, heretofore referred to as KMAR. Here he sticks his hand into a primitive 10 Lb Pinhalense propane roaster from Brazil, El Salvador A trip to a mill. A trip to a wacky waterslide park. Must they be mutually exclusive? Well, next year they will add a race track, and you have an obscene combination of good times for the kids and the agriculture industry. Galicia Parque Acuatico. El Salvador As mentioned, the roasting was excellent, and here you can see the detailed roasting log kept for each sample. I took a picture of this when Jorge wasn’t looking. El Salvador Oh god, it’s Luau night.. No good can come from this… El Salvador 
Yes, no good at all. Thankfully there are no pictures of me (center) stripped to the waist, doing my version of the hula, which was basically (as a form of mocking the whole %#$ing thing) a robot dance followed b y my version of a narcoleptic seizure on the ground. Remember fellow cuppers, I took one for the group. I paid my dues, you all owe me! El Salvador Tineke was a real sweetheart, working for a company that pays equal attention to cigars, tea and coffee. My only question about her: how can a fine lady like this from northern Europe have a tan 10x darker than an outdoorsy guy like me from Cali? Hmmmm…. El Salvador Favorite wood bear/ door stop El Salvador At the awards, we have one Bill Swoope, looking like he wants to kick the photographers butt, Cy from Monmouth, and John from Kaffa in Holland. El Salvador Duane making like automaton El Salvador Leah, the one with the biting wit (but you can’t hide it, she has a sweet heart) El Salvador Of course, KMAR and TBONE (me) had our moments. I don’t know what I did wrong but he kept saying “I won’t wait for my Coffee Yakuza, I Karate your ass right NOW!” El Salvador Plastic birds. They were everywhere. Can’t fool me though. El Salvador No disrespect, but in general the national anthems in C America are about 38 minutes long. And they keep faking you out. There’s part 1, then it switches gear into part 2, then by chorus 28, stanza 14 you are about to keel over. El Salvador And the winner is …Alfred Hitchcock! There was something incredibly uncanny about that coffee. In fact, I wrote “McGuffin” on the cupping form, without really knowing why. Suddenly it all made sense. El Salvador Animated GIF of the blinking Hitchcock, El Salvador El Salvador The press descends. El Salvador The Decameron hospital bracelet. El Salvador Yet another friendly C. American police checkpoint. I know they are checking that people have paid registration, etc. But it still creeps me out. I mean, they could also get the order to close down roads if there was civil unrest, etc. Checkpoints are simply creepy. Plus I had those 10 parrots I was smuggling into Guatemala. El Salvador El Salvador El Salvador
The Jury of Cuppers
Name Country Company
Head Judge
Sherri Johns USA ACE
North America
Darren Daniel USA Allegro Coffee Co.
Duane Sorenson USA Stumptown Coffee
Jayson North USA PTs Coffee Co.
Tim Chapdelaine USA Volcafe Specialty CoffeeSpecialty coffee was a term devised to mean higher levels of green coffee quality than average "industrial coffee" or "commercial coffee". At this point, the term is of... ...more
Geoff Watts USA Intelligentsia
Trish Skeie USA Zoka Coffee RoasterA machine for roasting coffee. Or the person operating it! The basic requirements for a coffee roaster are a heating element that gets suitably hot and a mechanism... ...more & Tea Co.
Mark Zwahl USA Z’s Divine EspressoA small coffee beverage, about 20 ml, prepared on an espresso machine where pressurized hot water extracted through compressed coffee.: In its most stripped-down, basic form, this is... ...more
Ruben Sagastume USA Condaxis Coffee & Tea Inc.
Bill Swoope USA The Coffee Tree Roasters
Tom Owen USA Sweet Maria’s Coffee
Europe
Tsy Toquica UK Monmouth Coffee Company
Sanna Joutsijoki Finland Mokkamestarit Oy
Tineke Jansen Netherlands De Eenhoorn Koffie en thee
John Moore Norway Kaffa AS
Asia
Kentaro Maruyama Japan Maruyama Coffee
Yuko Yamada Itoi Japan Time’s Club Inc.
Keizo Sato Japan Wataru & Co., Ltd.
Masahisa Asano Japan TOA Coffee., Ltd.
Leah Warren Malaysia San Francisco Coffee
Central America
Jorge Escobar El SalvadorEl Salvador coffee had an undeservingly poor reputation for years, marred mostly by the inability to deliver coffee of high quality in an unstable political climate. Unfortunately, agriculture... ...more Salvadoran Coffee Council
Mario Paiz El Salvador UNEX S.A.
Aldo Ruffatti El Salvador Coop. Los Ausoles
Lorena PacasA mutation of Bourbon cultivar that appeared in El Salvador in 1949: Pacas is a natural mutation of Bourbon cultivar that appeared in El Salvador in 1949. It... ...more El Salvador El Borbollón
South America
Marco Kerkmeester BrazilBrazil is a coffee giant . As Frank Sinatra sang, "they grow an awful lot of coffee in Brazil".: Brazil is a coffee giant . As Frank Sinatra... ...more Santo Grâo Café
Observers
Keita Matsumoto Japan Wataru & Co., Ltd.
Yoshinobu Arakawa Japan The Coffee Beans
Winning Farms NO MUESTRA NOTA PRODUCTOR FINCASpanish 101: Finca is the Spanish word for farm. Sometimes the term Hacienda is used to imply an Estate, which would mean the farm has its own wet-mill.... ...more CANTON VARIEDAD my score 1 HLB-609 94.00 ORTIZ BARRIERE, S.A. DE C.V. LAS MERCEDES EL TIGRE BourbonA coffee cultivar; a cross between Typica and Bourbon, originally grown in Brazil: Mundo Novo is a commercial coffee cultivar; a natural hybrid between "Sumatra" and Red Bourbon,... ...more CultivarCultivar is a term used interchangeably with Varietal in the coffee trade to indicate plant material, although there are distinctions.: The naming of a cultivar should conform to... ...more 94.00 2 HLB-610 93.52 SERGIO EDMUNDO TICAS REYES LOS PLANES LOS PLANES PacamaraAs the name implies, Pacamara is a large bean cultivar, a cross between Pacas and Maragogype with unique flavor properties. This variant originated in El Salvador in 1958,... ...more 96.00 3 HLB-622 91.46 RAUL OCHOA HERNANDEZ – JOSE ARNULFO MONTIEL LA MONTA¥A EL TUNEL Pacamara 92.00 4 HLB-619 91.20 PACVIL, S.A. DE C.V. SANTA SOFIA PALO DE CAMPAN Bourbon Cultivar 88.00 5 HLB-607 91.13 OSCAR MAGAÑA MONTENEGRO LA REFORMA Bourbon Cultivar 92.00 6 HLB-614 90.20 PATRICIA MOLINA BATTLE EL ANGEL OCHUPSE ARRIBA Bourbon Cultivar 87.00 7 HLB-601 89.72 HIMALAYA, S.A. DE C.V. SANTA MARIA TALTAPANCA Bourbon Cultivar 92.00 8 HLB-624 89.39 AGROINVERSIONES SALBA, S. A. DE C. V. SANTA JULIA I EL PORVENIR, VA Bourbon Cultivar 90.00 9 HLB-625 89.02 AGROINVERSIONES SALBA, S. A. DE C. V. SANTA JULIA II EL PORVENIR,VAL Bourbon Cultivar 85.00 10 HLB-605 88.48 AGROINVERSIONES SALBA, S. A. DE C. V. SANTA ELENA JUAN HIGINIO Bourbon Cultivar\Paca 85.00 11 HLB-606 88.26 JUAN DUCH MARTINEZ EL CARMEN POTRERO GRAND Bourbon Cultivar 85.00 12 HLB-627 86.94 GUSTAVO E.URRUTIA POLANCO Y CIA.DE CV Y RL COM. SI EL ZAPOTE CUYANAUSUL Pacamara 91.00 13 HLB-621 86.57 CHANTUC, S.A. DE C.V. MALACARA LOTE B BUENOS AIRES Bourbon Cultivar\Paca 82.00 14 HLB-615 86.54 ANTONIO RENE AGUILAR LEMUS LA MONTA¥ITA EL TUNEL Bourbon Cultivar 91.00 15 HLB-602 86.22 F.A. PACAS Y CIA EL RETIRO BUENOS AIRES Bourbon Cultivar 97.00 16 HLB-629 86.22 CARMEN DUCH MARTINEZ FATIMA POTRERO GRAND Bourbon Cultivar 90.00 17 HLB-616 85.63 GUSTAVO ENRIQUE MAGAÑA DE LA TORRE LA GUERRA (TABLON LA GUERRA 1) SAN RAMON Bourbon Cultivar 85.00 18 HLB-620 85.63 ROSA MERCEDES GARCIA DE RODRIGUEZ LAS MERCEDES BUENOS AIRES Bourbon Cultivar 80.00 19 HLB-604 85.59 OPERACIONES MULTIPLES, S.A. DE C.V. LAS VICTORIAS SUNTECUMAT Bourbon Cultivar\Paca 88.00 20 HLB-613 85.54 CARLOS ROBERTO SALINAS MAGAÑA E TRAPICHE PALO VERDE Bourbon Cultivar 80.00 21 HLB-618 85.46 MARIA ALICIA CASTILLOCastillo is a selection of the Colombia cultivar that has become the most commonly grown coffee in Colombia. It is preferred to the older resistant variety, Variedad Colombia... ...more DE MAGAÑA EL CASHAL SUNTECUMAT Bourbon Cultivar 83.00 22 HLB-603 85.24 LILIANA AMALIA HERRERA CORNEJO DE URRUTIA MONTE SION TAPACUM Bourbon Cultivar 85.00 23 HLB-617 84.83 MARGARITA LUCIA DIAZ DE LOPEZ EL MANZANO LAS CRUCES Bourbon Cultivar 79.00
