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Cup of Excellence records by country

Properties3
descriptionCountry-by-country record prices at the Cup of Excellence auctions — who won, what it sold for, and who bought it, with the shaky numbers flagged.
tagsconcept, competition, auction, prices
aliasesCOE records, COE records by country, Cup of Excellence record prices, Cup of Excellence winners by country, competitions/cup-of-excellence-records-by-country, concepts/cup-of-excellence-records-by-country

19 min read

Cup of Excellence records by country

The Cup of Excellence (COE) runs as a separate national competition in each participating country, and each one ends in its own online auction.1 That means there is no single “COE record” — there is a record for Ethiopia, a record for Costa Rica, a record for El Salvador, and so on, plus one all-time high that happens to sit on top of them all.

This note is the country-by-country ledger. It exists because the headline numbers travel badly: news stories drop the country, mix up a COE auction with a private one, or quote a price per kilo in one story and per pound in the next.

Two things to hold onto before reading the table:

  • These are tiny lots. A record price is what one determined bidder paid for one small bag, not a market rate.
  • Per kilo and per pound are both used. A kilo is about 2.2 pounds, so a 1,000/kg headline and a 450/lb headline can be the same coffee.

Where the countries stand

As of mid-2026 the Alliance for Coffee Excellence lists COE competitions in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Costa Rica, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil, and Peru.2

That is the active list. ACE’s results archive covers seventeen countries in total — the ten above plus Bolivia, Burundi, Colombia, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Rwanda and Taiwan.3 Several of those programmes have stopped; the results pages stay up, which is why prices from dormant competitions are still quotable.

To verify

Ethiopia is not on that 2026 list — even though Ethiopia holds the all-time record price and ran a competition in 2024. The Cup of Excellence note records that Ethiopia’s programme was suspended in 2023 and returned in 2024; whether it is paused again, simply between editions, or listed elsewhere on ACE’s site is unresolved here. Check ACE’s country pages before saying Ethiopia “currently” runs COE.

The all-time high: Ethiopia, 2024

The highest price ever paid at a COE auction is 980.64/kg — about 445/lb, at the 2024 Ethiopia competition. Confirmed details:

  • Producer: Basha Bekele, a smallholder farmer in Bensa woreda, East Sidama
  • Score: 90.50 points (see Coffee scoring)
  • Buyer: Angelino’s Coffee, a California specialty roaster
  • The lot was split in two. ACE’s official table lists 1A — 90 kg (198.42 lb) at 445.00/lb, 88,296.90, to Angelino’s Coffee and 1B — 105 kg (231.49 lb) at 350.10/lb, 81,044.65, to Orsir International Co. Ltd. and Saza Coffee. Same coffee, same score, same first place; two separate bids. The record is the 1A price4
  • Whole auction: all 27 winning lots sold, 4,870 bids, 906,921.81** total, weighted average **24.64/lb

It beat the previous COE high, set at the 2022 Ethiopia auction on 23 August 2022. The official table settles what that record actually was: lot 1a from Legese Botosa Dikale, Sidama, 90.69 points, sold at 400.50/lb** for **211,904.55, bought by LNK Coffee Trading DMCC for Lebunna. The same coffee’s lot 1b went at 400.00/lb** to [[Saza Coffee]] and [[Orsir Coffee]]. That auction sold **72,647.9 lb for 1,370,736.17 across 30 lots, a $55.37/lb average.5

DMCC is the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, which explains the “UAE company” in Ethiopian press coverage of the sale. Its 884.10/kg** figure[^9] is a conversion of the same bid — 400.50/lb is 882.95/kg, about a dollar off, which is rounding rather than a second number. **Quote the 400.50/lb; it is the figure on the official table.

Country by country

CountryYearTop priceBuyerNotes
1Ethiopia2024980.64/kg (~445/lb)Angelino’s Coffee (USA)All-time COE high; Basha Bekele, Bensa, Sidama, 90.5 pts
2Ethiopia2022400.50/lb (~883/kg)LNK Coffee Trading DMCC (Dubai)The record 2024 broke; Legese Botosa Dikale, Sidama, 90.69 pts
3Costa Rica2018$300.09/lbnot named in the ACE announcementHoney-process Geisha; the benchmark before Ethiopia
4Guatemala2025$143.10/lbTaiwan Coffee Development Association, Bean Super, Orsir International, Taiwan Coffee LaboratoryWashed Geisha, La Gran Manzana, Angel Alejandro Morales De La Peña, 91.15 pts; 2002–2024 editions not checked
5Honduras2024$136.50/lbProud Mary Coffee, Black & White, Verve, Onyx (lot 1B); Angelino’s Coffee (lot 1A, $132.00/lb)Washed Geisha, La Salsa, Benjamín Paz Muñoz, 91.21 pts
6Brazilpre-2018$126.10/lbnot namedExperimental yellow Bourbon — the record Costa Rica 2018 broke
7El Salvador2024$122.00/lbnot named in the ACE results tableNatural Geisha, Los Morales, 91.80 pts; buyer claim still unverified
8Nicaragua2025$88.20/lbnot namedWashed lot “Los Alpes”, Inversiones Valladarez Acevedo S.A.; auction low was $9.00/lb
9Peru2023$80.20/lbKaldi Coffee Farm / Camel Coffee (Japan)Washed Geisha, Alto Mirador, Yoniser Mego Silva, Cajamarca, 90.74 pts; 2017–2022 editions not checked
10Indonesia2023$45.50/lbOrsir International Co. Ltd. (Taiwan)Winning lot 1A, Ijen Lestari, 91.41 pts, 396.83 lb, $18,055.77
11Bolivia2009$35.05/lbMaruyama Coffee for Mikatajuku Group, Itoya Coffee, Orsir Coffee (Japan/Taiwan)Agrotakesi SA, Yanacahi, Yungas of La Paz, 93.36 pts; last Bolivian edition6
12Burundi2019$21.20/lbMaruyama Coffee, Sarutahiko Coffee and others (Japan/Korea)Gatukuza (Ets Nduwayezu), 90.13 pts; last Burundian edition
13Rwanda2018$18.70/lbMaruyama Coffee, Sarutahiko Coffee, Good Boy Bob, Difference CoffeeTwumba Coffee, Karongi, Yandagiye Marthe, 90.53 pts; last Rwandan edition
14Brazil1999$2.60/lbDiedrich (USA)The first COE auction ever held; Alterosa, Cláudio Carvalho Ottoni, 50 bags, score not recorded — see Cup of Excellence 1999-2003

Costa Rica, 2018

Costa Rica’s 300.09/lb** honey-process [[Geisha]] nearly tripled the standing COE record at the time, a **126.10/lb experimental yellow Bourbon from Brazil.7 “Honey process” means the fruit’s skin is stripped but the sticky mucilage is left on the bean while it dries — a middle road between washed and natural that tends to add sweetness and body.

To verify

The ACE announcement does not name the buyer, the farm, or the cupping score for that lot. A secondary summary describes the winner as going to an “East Asian group”; nothing found here supports that attribution. Also unverified: claims that a 2026 Costa Rica auction returned “nearly 800,000" to the sector with experimental Geishas around 250–300/lb, and an often-repeated typical range of 20–132/lb for top Costa Rican lots against 5–7/lb for lower-scoring ones.8

Guatemala, 2001 and 2025

Guatemala is one of the programme’s founding countries — its first Cup of Excellence ran in 2001, and ACE’s archive carries an unbroken run of Guatemalan editions since.9 Put the first auction next to a recent one and you get the clearest picture in this ledger of what twenty-four years did to these prices.

2001: the top lot was Las Nubes, thirty bags, at 11.00/lb**, bought by the Norwegian roaster **Solberg & Hansen**. Fifteen winning farms sold for **462,797.60 in total.9

2025: twenty-three lots across four categories sold 23,972.6 lb for 656,953.17**, a weighted average of **27.37/lb — more than double the 2001 auction’s top price, as an average.10 The top lot was a washed Geisha from La Gran Manzana (Angel Alejandro Morales De La Peña) at 91.15 points, taking 143.10/lb** from a Taiwanese group: the **Taiwan Coffee Development Association**, Bean Super, [[Orsir Coffee|Orsir International]] and the Taiwan Coffee Laboratory. The Exotic Natural & Honey category was won by a natural Geisha from **Las Macadamias** at **91.04**, at **117.40/lb.

Guatemala’s category structure is worth noting because it is not the two-way washed/natural split Nicaragua uses. The 2025 competition ran Exotic Washed, Exotic Natural & Honey, One of a Kind and National Winners — and the gap between them is enormous. The One of a Kind winner, El Nazareno, a natural of traditional varieties at 89.26, took 18.20/lb**. The five **National Winner** lots, scoring 86.88–87.53, sold between **4.03 and $13.10/lb.10 Two points of cupping score, and a hundred and twenty-five dollars a pound.

The country’s national body, ANACAFÉ, carries Cup of Excellence among its own programmes and supplied a juror to the 2001 international panel, but no source read here names the formal in-country partner organisation.

To verify

**143.10/lb is the 2025 top price, not a confirmed national record.** Four Guatemalan editions have now been read — **2001, 2015, 2021 and 2025**, plus **2022** via [[Finca El Injerto]], whose 111.20/lb second-place Geisha is the highest of the added years. The remaining editions (2002 and 2006–2014, 2016–2020, 2023–2024) were not checked, so a higher Guatemalan price may still exist in an unread year.

Honduras, 2024

The country most people file under “bulk coffee” holds the fifth-highest price in this table. Honduras has run COE since 2004, and its 2024 edition — judged 27–31 May 2024, auctioned 11 July 2024 — was won by a washed Geisha from La Salsa, producer Benjamín Paz Muñoz, at 91.21 points. The lot split the usual two ways: 1A, 276.56 lb at 132.00/lb (36,505.92) to Angelino’s Coffee, and 1B, 264.56 lb at 136.50/lb (36,112.44) to a consortium of Proud Mary Coffee, Black & White, Verve and Onyx. The whole auction moved 19,232.76 lb for 464,057.58** across 29 winning lots, a weighted average of **24.13/lb.11

Second place is the oddity worth remembering: a washed SL-28 — a Kenyan variety — from El Mango (Alma Aydee Pineda Alvarado) at 90.86, selling at 50.00 and 50.10/lb to Glitch Coffee & Roasters and Kyokuto Fadie Corporation in Japan.11

The year before shows how unstable these prices are. Honduras 2023 was won by a natural Pacamara from Pino De Oro (Oscar Edgardo Tinoco Madrid) scoring 91.78 — higher than the 2024 winner — and both its lots sold at 62.00/lb**, under half the 2024 price, to Coffee Libre in South Korea and a Proud Mary–led group.[^20] In **2025** the top lot was again a washed Geisha, **La Salvaje** at **91.59**, at **81.20–88.40/lb**, in an auction totalling **496,833.10 over 20,504 lb.12

Three years, three winners, scores within 0.6 of each other, and prices of 62, 136.50 and $88.40. See Premiumisation.

Nicaragua, 2025

Judged 5–9 May 2025, auctioned 19 June 2025. Thirty lots — fifteen washed, fifteen natural or honey — sold 20,106 lb for 367,380.19**, a weighted average of about **18.27/lb. Prices ran from 88.20/lb** at the top down to **9.00/lb at the bottom.13

Nicaragua is also the country in this table that shows what COE does at the ordinary end of the scale. Ramón Jarquín placed second among the washed coffees with a Maracaturra from his farm Solidaridad in Matagalpa, scoring 90.50 and selling 2,553.99 lb at 14.00/lb — 35,755.86 to a consortium of nine roasters. He had been selling to intermediaries at around $1.50/lb, so the auction paid roughly ten times his usual price.14

The lot that beat him shows the other end of the same auction. Abner Samuel Zavala won the washed category at 90.73 with a Geisha from La Esperanza in Nueva Segovia, selling two lots at **64.40/lb** (198.42 lb, 12,778.25, to K.V.N. Import Export) and **66.00/lb** (158.73 lb, 10,476.18, to Coffee Me Up of Korea and Two Hands Full of Indonesia) — the second and third highest prices of the auction. A margin of 0.23 points, and 52 a pound.** Zavala's family also illustrates the country's trajectory better than any single record: the same family's farm sold at **3.55/lb at the 2006 Nicaragua COE.

Nicaragua judges in two categories — washed, and natural & honey — and crowns a winner in each, which is why the country’s highest score and its highest price belong to three different farms. The Natural & Honey category was won by Olman Uriel Sauceda Chávez’s Elite in Mozonte with a honey-processed Geisha scoring 91.77 — the best score in the whole competition — which sold as 264.55 lb at 54.80/lb (14,497.34) to K.V.N. Import Export and 231.45 lb at 56.10/lb (12,984.35) to Decameron Coffee. So the top-scoring coffee of the 2025 auction came fourth and fifth on price, behind a lower-scoring washed lot that fetched $88.20. Score sets the floor here; it does not set the ceiling.

Nueva Segovia, the department on the Honduran border, supplied both category winners in 2025 and — per Nicaragua’s official gazette — all six podium places in 2026, where the natural category was topped by a 92.00 Geisha from Los Alpes (Inversiones Valladares Acevedo S.A., Dipilto), the same farm that set the 2025 price record above.15 ACE’s own Nicaragua 2026 page confirms the 92.00 for Los Alpes and gives the washed winner as El Cambalache at 91.4416 — but it publishes rank, score, farm, farmer, variety, process, region and weight only, with no price and no buyer columns. So no 2026 Nicaraguan price can be quoted yet, and Nicaragua’s row in the table above still stands on the 2025 auction.

To verify — two corrections to this note

An earlier version of this page listed Nicaragua’s 2025 record as “15/lb, Ramón Jarquín, El Porvenir"**. Both parts were wrong, and the correction is worth recording so the error is not reintroduced. **15/lb was never the country record — it was one mid-table lot, and the auction’s top price was 88.20/lb; the 15 figure itself comes from Qahwa World, while the ACE table says $14.00/lb. And El Porvenir was not his farm: ACE gives his farm as Solidaridad, and lists four other farms called El Porvenir in the same competition. Details on Ramón Jarquín.

El Salvador, 2024

The 122/lb figure is now confirmed against the ACE results table.** It was the top price of the 2024 El Salvador auction, paid for lot **1A of the Natural category** — a **[[Geisha]]** from the farm **Los Morales**, producer **Henri Milton Morales Umaña**, scoring **91.80**. The same coffee's second lot, **1B**, sold at **114.00/lb.

That also explains the shape of the original “1st and 2nd place” claim: the winning coffee was split into two auction lots, 1A and 1B, which is standard practice here and is the same mechanism as the Ethiopia 2024 record above.

The competition’s highest score was not that lot. It was 92.00, held by a washed Pacamara from La Bendicion (Ismael Recinos Flores), which sold for $31.60/lb — under a third of the Geisha’s price. Pacamara took five of the top six places in the washed and honey category that year; details on Pacamara.

To verify

What remains unconfirmed is the buyer. The claim that Angelino’s Coffee bought the record lots rests on a single source — Angelino’s own marketing blog, which is both self-interested and was unreachable when checked (HTTP 429). The ACE results table consulted here lists ranks, farms, producers, varieties, scores and prices, but no buyer names. The related claim that ten El Salvador lots scored above 90 points that year is roughly consistent with the ACE table (about thirteen lots score 90-plus across the three categories, counting split 1A/1B lots separately) but was not verified as stated.

Peru, 2023–2025

Peru has run COE every year since 2017,17 and the last three auctions are the steadiest set of numbers in this whole ledger. 2023: a washed Geisha from Alto Mirador (Yoniser Mego Silva, Cajamarca) at 90.74, sold at 80.20/lb** to Kaldi Coffee Farm / Camel Coffee of Japan; 30 lots, **431,106.26, weighted average 21.39/lb**.[^22] **2024:** **El Mirador** (Miguel Padilla Chinguel, Cajamarca), a washed Caturra/Bourbon/Geisha at **90.54**, **72.20/lb to Angelino’s Coffee; 25 lots, 15,278.49 lb, 403,426.24**, average **26.38/lb.18 2025: La Catarata (Angel Antonio Manosalva Palomino, Cajamarca), washed Geisha, 90.64, 80.10/lb** to La Cabra Coffee; 30 lots, 18,571.48 lb, **495,379.91, average $26.66/lb.19

Three winners, three years, all three from Cajamarca, all three scoring within 0.2 points of each other, and top prices of 80.20, 72.20 and 80.10. Where Honduras swung between 62 and $136.50 over the same span, Peru barely moved.

That stability is also a ceiling. A 90.74 Peruvian coffee fetched 80.20/lb**; a **90.50** Ethiopian coffee fetched **445/lb. See Premiumisation.

To verify

The $80.20/lb above is the highest price in the 2023, 2024 and 2025 tables — the three Peruvian editions read here. 2017 through 2022 were not checked, so this is not confirmed as the national record.

Indonesia, 2023

Indonesia’s top price is the lowest in this table and is useful precisely for that. The winning lot — 1A, from Ijen Lestari, 91.41 points — sold 396.83 lb at 45.50/lb, 18,055.77, to the Taiwanese buyer Orsir International Co. Ltd..20

A coffee scoring 91.41 — higher than the Ethiopian lot that set the all-time record at 90.50 — cleared at about a tenth of the price. Score is not price. What separates the two numbers is reputation, origin, and how many bidders decided in advance that they wanted that particular country’s coffee on their menu. See Premiumisation.

Rwanda 2018 and Burundi 2019 — the African programmes that stopped

Both East African programmes are now dormant, and both ended with their record on the board. Rwanda ran COE in 2008, 2010–2015 and 2018; Burundi in 2012–2015 and 2017–2019.3 Neither country appears on ACE’s current active list, but both remain in its results archive.

The two auctions are near-twins. Rwanda 2018: Twumba Coffee in Karongi, producer Yandagiye Marthe, 90.53 points, split lots at **18.70/lb** and 18.20/lb; 28 COE lots plus 7 National Winners, 359,217.70** total, weighted average **6.60/lb.21 Burundi 2019: Gatukuza (Ets Nduwayezu), 90.13 points, split lots at 21.10** and **21.20/lb; 21 lots, 43,060.68 lb, 291,378.89** total, weighted average **6.76/lb.22

Put those next to the top of this table and the point of the whole page becomes visible. A 90.53-point Rwandan coffee sold for 18.70/lb; a 90.50-point Ethiopian coffee sold for 445/lb. Same score, twenty-four times the price. What separates them is not the cup — it is which origins buyers have decided are worth bidding on. See Premiumisation.

Both countries’ top lots went overwhelmingly to Japanese and Korean buyers — Maruyama, Sarutahiko, Takamura, Terarosa, Songdo — the same cohort that shows up at the top of the Ethiopian tables.

The number that isn’t a COE record

A widely shared 2025 story reports Ethiopian coffee hitting 1,739/kg (~789/lb), which would dwarf the 2024 COE record. It is not a Cup of Excellence result. The sale happened at Echoes of the Peak, the private auction run by the producer Alo Coffee — 20 lots grown at 2,400–2,580 m, weighted average 625/kg, 6,457 bids, 135,922.50 total.23

That Alo runs the auction itself, on the M-Cultivo bidding platform, is confirmed by both M-Cultivo’s own event listing and Alo’s auction site (both).2425 Private auctions and COE auctions are different events with different rules — one seller versus a judged national field — so their prices should never be put in the same table. Flagged because the research feeding this note came close to doing exactly that.

To verify — the $1,739/kg lot's details

The buyer of the record lot is named nowhere, and no official results sheet for the auction is published. The lot IDs, the opening-lot price and the previous Ethiopian record it beat are all single-sourced. Details on Echoes of the Peak.

Also unconfirmed

To verify

Still single-sourced to roaster blogs and not confirmed here: that the inaugural 2020 Ethiopia COE topped out at $185/lb to Saza Coffee (Japan), and that the 2024 edition drew 600+ samples.

Two claims that were on this list are now confirmed by ACE’s own Ethiopia 2024 page: the competition produced 27 COE winners scoring above 87 (plus 13 National Winner lots at 85+), and the winning coffees were naturally processed, predominantly variety 74158.

Footnotes

  1. Cup of Excellence — official site ↩

  2. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — competition & auction results ↩

  3. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — competition & auction results archive ↩ ↩2

  4. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Ethiopia 2024 results and auction ↩

  5. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Ethiopia 2022 results and auction ↩

  6. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Bolivia 2009 results and auction ↩

  7. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Costa Rican Gesha shatters Cup of Excellence record at $300 per pound ↩

  8. Tico Times — Coffee auction offers taste of excellence (2012) ↩

  9. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Guatemala 2001 results and auction ↩ ↩2

  10. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Guatemala 2025 results and auction ↩ ↩2

  11. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Honduras 2024 results and auction ↩ ↩2

  12. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Honduras 2025 results and auction ↩

  13. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Nicaragua 2025 results and auction ↩

  14. Qahwa World — Cup of Excellence changes a life in Nicaragua ↩

  15. La Gaceta (Nicaragua) — Cafés de Nueva Segovia destacan en la XXII edición de la Taza de la Excelencia Nicaragua 2026 ↩

  16. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Nicaragua 2026 results ↩

  17. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Perú 2023 results and auction ↩

  18. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Perú 2024 results and auction ↩

  19. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Perú 2025 results and auction ↩

  20. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Indonesia 2023 results and auction ↩

  21. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Rwanda 2018 results and auction ↩

  22. Alliance for Coffee Excellence — Burundi 2019 results and auction ↩

  23. Addis Insight — Ethiopian coffee hits $1,739 per kilo in record-breaking auction ↩

  24. M-Cultivo — auction events (lists “Echoes of the Peak”, hosted by Alo Coffee) ↩

  25. Alo Coffee Auction — about “Echoes of the Peak” ↩

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