What do this year's coffee beans by country results show for Ethiopia?

The 2024 Ethiopia Cup of Excellence results are out: all 27 winning coffees were natural processed, all came from JARC numerical varieties, and Sidama stood out among producing regions. The competition received 500 entries, and 27 coffees scoring above 87 points were selected after the event resumed following its 2023 suspension.

Ethiopia first held the COE in 2020; the 2022 auction set a national record of $400.5 per pound before civil war forced a pause in 2023. Coffee cultivation in the Sidama sub-regions of Bensa and Bona is favored by geography, and the article traces the background of the JARC numerical variety series.

The results of the 2024 Ethiopia Cup of Excellence (COE) competition have been announced, and this year's event had many highlights: all 27 winning coffees were natural processed, and all came from the JARC numerical variety series, with the Sidama region emerging as the biggest winner. Looking back, since Ethiopia first held the COE in 2020, it once set a record high price of $400.5 per pound; the event was suspended in 2023 due to civil war, and after restarting this year, it delivered impressive results. This article will walk you through the detailed results of this year's competition and provide an in-depth analysis of the geographical advantages of the Sidama sub-regions Bensa and Bona, as well as the origins of the JARC numerical varieties.

Recently, the results of the 2024 Ethiopia Cup of Excellence (COE) competition were officially announced. Judging from this year's winners list, the natural processing method secured an overwhelming victory, and among Ethiopia's major producing regions, Sidama's performance stood out in particular.

Looking back at history, Ethiopia first held the COE competition and auction only in 2020, when 28 winning auction lots generated total sales of $134. In 2022, the Ethiopia COE auction set a record high price for the country's coffee, reaching $400.5 per pound (approximately 2,899 yuan).

However, in 2023, because the left-wing party the TPLF was dissatisfied with the newly elected government, the conflict escalated into civil war. The organizer, the nonprofit Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE), after consultation with the Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority, determined that the country's domestic situation was severe and decided to suspend that year's COE event. This year, the Ethiopian government declared that the situation had returned to stability, so the COE was able to restart.

According to relevant introductions, this year's Ethiopia COE competition received a total of 500 participating coffees, and ultimately 27 coffees scoring above 87 points stood out. Compared with previous editions, this year's 27 winning coffees share a notable characteristic: all were natural processed, and all were numerical varieties.

In fact, as early as the 2021 Ethiopia COE, numerical varieties had already appeared in large numbers, though at that time there were still a small number of heirloom or Typica varieties. By 2022 and 2024, only numerical varieties remained on the winners list.

Ethiopia has approximately 10,000 to 15,000 coffee varieties, most of which have not undergone formal genetic identification and are extremely difficult to distinguish, so they are usually collectively referred to as "Heirloom" native varieties. However, with the continued development of the specialty coffee market, buyers' interest in rare or exclusive coffee varieties has grown increasingly strong, and variety segmentation work within Ethiopia has accordingly accelerated; for example, the now-common JARC numerical varieties are one such example.

JARC varieties were developed by Ethiopia's Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC). Between 1973 and 1975, the research center collected coffee beans from 15 regions and identified and conducted cultivation trials on a total of 639 different varieties. Among these samples, 13 beans performed excellently, combining disease resistance, high yield, and drought tolerance with good flavor performance.

JARC therefore classified these beans as the "1974/1975 CBD-Resistant Selections," also known as the numerical numbering series. Common numbers include 74110, 74158, and so on, where the first two digits 74/75 represent the year of discovery, and the following digits are the variety number.

In this year's Ethiopia COE competition, most of the winning coffees came from the Sidama region, and the two sub-regions of Bensa and Bona under Sidama performed especially brilliantly.

Bona is located in the eastern part of Sidama Province, while Bensa, which has recently risen to fame, lies east of Bona. Influenced by the East African Rift Valley, Bona has a relatively high altitude, with coffee cultivation at elevations between 2,150 and 2,330 meters. In addition, tributaries of the Genale River spread throughout the area, providing abundant water; Holo volcano has brought fertile soil. Together, these favorable conditions have contributed to the local producing region's frequent success in COE competitions.

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.