The Cup of Excellence program is designed to allow any farmer in the country to submit one sample without any fee in the competition. There are 3 stages of the COE competition. COE selects a national jury of professional sensory tasters to analyze all samples received in the competition for the 1st stage. If the coffee passes the same national jury will then analyze the lot samples twice in the 2nd stage of the competition, selecting the best of the coffees for the 3rd and final stage of the competition. COE selects an international jury of professional coffee tasters and buyers to analyze the final coffees at least 2 more times before the top 30 – 87+ scoring coffees are selected for the COE auction. Read more about our competition rules.

In order to participate on an international jury, order sample sets and register for a COE auction you need to become an ACE member and then purchases Cup of Excellence and/or ACE National Winner sample sets. Purchasing the samples also registers you for the COE auction or you can separately register for the auction only.

Before the auction day you will receive bidding instructions and bidding agreement to review and approve. At the scheduled date and time, you can go to the ACE site and place bids to purchase excellent coffee and reward farmers. The Cup of Excellence auction is a timed auction starting at a specific time and lasting a few hours until all coffees get at least 1 bid and 3 minutes pass with no new bid on any one auction lot.

Once the auctions have ended the winning bidder will receive an email confirming you won the coffee and you will need to immediately start to coordinate payment and shipping with the exporter chosen for that country’s program. Detailed information about the bidding, buying and shipping process is sent to all registered bidders prior to the auction and bidders need to agree upon these conditions prior to bidding on the auction.