Contact:
Andy Newbom, Chief Espresso Officer
Barefoot Coffee Roasters, Inc.
phone: 408-293-7200
email: andy@barefootcoffee.com

or
Susie Spindler Executive Director
Alliance for Coffee Excellence, Inc.
Email: susies@cupofexcellence.org
Phone: 406-542-3509

Bay Area Coffee Roaster selected as judge in

2008 Guatemala Cup of Excellence® competition

Barefoot Coffee Roasters’ Andy Newbom selected as only Bay Area judge of prestigious Cup of Excellence competition in Guatemala May 8^th through 12^th 2008.

San Jose, CA, April 24th, 2008 – The Cup of Excellence is the most stringent and prestigious coffee competition in the world. Judges are hand selected from coffee professionals around the world. Judging at a Cup Of Excellence competition involves three to four eight hour days of intense and non stop cupping of hundreds of remarkable coffees. To be invited to judge in the Cup of Excellence is a high honor and only a handful of judges are invited each year. Andy Newbom of Barefoot Coffee Roasters has been selected to be a judge for the 2008 Guatemala Cup Of Excellence May 8^th through the 12^th.

Mr. Newbom will be arriving early to Guatemala on the 6^th in order to visit several farmers and mills in Antigua. Joining him in Guatemala City will be Edwin Martinez, owner of Finca Vista Hermosa coffee farm in Huehuetenango which Barefoot Coffee has bought direct from for the last four years. Edwin Martinez is hoping for a repeat of the last few years where their coffee placed in the top ten in the Cup Of Excellence.

“Finca Vista Hermosa produces remarkable coffees and deserves to be in the top.” Expressed Andy Newbom, Barefoot Coffee. “In 2007 Barefoot bought the other half of the Cup of Excellence lot from Finca Vista Hermosa and we fell in love with the amazing flavors and hope to win the Cup Of Excellence lot this year!”

Susie Spindler, executive director of Cup of Excellence anticipates that 2008 will once again bring high average prices for the winning coffees sold at auction. Since its inception in 1999, the price per pound has steadily increased to reach $6.11 in 2007. In just the past four years the average price per pound has increased nearly 75% from $4.56 to $6.11.

“Attention to quality on the part of the growers, coupled with increased competition from buyers around the world has helped Cup of Excellence winning farmers receive more money for their efforts,” added Spindler. In response to the marketplace momentum, the opening price for all auctions will be increased this year.

With its continued success, international jury participation has strengthened as well. To date, juries for most competitions are already full, with waiting lists for some countries.

Since it’s beginnings in 1999, the Cup of Excellence® program has hosted programs in Brazil, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Bolivia and Colombia. The Cup of Excellence program is managed by the non-profit Alliance for Coffee Excellence, Inc, The state of the art Cup of Excellence auction has been managed since 2002 in partnership with CommoditiesOne, a leading software development firm. For more information about the Cup of Excellence program, or to become a member log on to http://www.cupofexcellence.org

The 2008 Cup of Excellence schedule is as follows:

Costa Rica: International Competition April 7-11; Auction May 15.

Nicaragua: International Competition, April 14-18; Auction May 27.

El Salvador: International Competition April 21-25; Auction June 5.

Guatemala: International Competition May 8-12; Auction June 12.

Honduras: International Competition May 19-23; Auction July 8.

Rwanda: International Competition August 25-29; Auction October 14.

Colombia: International Competition Sept. 15-19; Auction October 28.

Bolivia: International Competition October 6-10; Auction November 25.

Barefoot Coffee Roasters, Inc. is a cafe and roastery in the heart of Silicon Valley operating in the old ways of hands-on craftsmanship. While still keeping it simple; taking great coffee, crafting it with pride and passion and treating the whole coffee experience as a culinary art while operating sustainably from top to bottom. The team has been ranked as one of the top four boutique roasters in the nation by Food and Wine Magazine and is the Bay Areas most award winning artisan roaster. Barefoot is an artisan roaster of sustainable coffees including Organic, Fair Trade, Shade Grown, co-op grown, single estates, auction winning lots and relationship coffees. Located at 5237 Stevens Creek Blvd. in Santa Clara, CA (at the corner of Lawrence Expressway). For more information, please call (408) 293-7200, visit www.barefootcoffee.com or simply drop by.

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With your help we can reach $2500 or more by this Friday! And our friends at Victrola Coffee and fellow Finca Vista Hermosa friends are going to be launching their own program to offer proceeds from the sale of FVH coffee for the Martin fund and we will add this to the check we give to Edwin Martinez (owner of Finca Vista Hermosa) when he goes to Guatemala in two weeks.

Thank you all!

And Edwin Martinez has setup a donation and more info about Carlos and Edwin on his blog as well

On February 15^th, 2008 a tragedy struck our farm partners at Finca Vista Hermosa in Guatemala. For the last decade or more Carlos has managed the day to day operations of Finca Vista Hermosa. He has labored tirelessly to bring exceptional quality, exquisite farming methods, demanding harvesting and processing procedures and intense cross training for all farm workers. The results have been astounding. Finca Vista Hermosa has consistently won international awards for coffee flavor and quality in auctions and programs. Carlos Martin lived a rich and full life and lived for his family and for coffee. He was training his oldest son Edwin Martin to take over managing the farm when he retires.

But Carlos and Edwin Martin’s lives were tragically cut short. On a return trip to the Finca they were ambushed by armed bandits and brutally murdered. They were returning with payroll for the farm workers and supplies and food for the entire farm. The sorrow and pain we here at Barefoot Coffee feel is deep and taxing. Roast Master Eugenia Chien and Andy Newbom spent a great deal of time with Carlos and Eddie when we last visited Finca Vista Hermosa.

To show our love and support for the entire family of Finca Vista Hermosa and to help Carlos’ wife Juana and her 11 children Barefoot Coffee Roasters is launching a support fund for their family. From February 22^nd through March 7^th

100% of all proceeds from sales of all of our Guatemala Finca Vista Hermosa coffees beans will be donated to the fund for Juana.

In about two weeks Edwin Martinez (the owner of Finca Vista Hermosa) will be going back to Guatemala and will bring down the check and present it to her. Please join us in supporting this amazing family of coffee farmers. You are also encouraged to make cash donations as well.

Carlos Martin and his son Eddie were an amazing team of coffee professionals and our hearts are saddened at their passing. Carlos’ older brother and original farm manager Lencho and Carlos’ son Diego are working with the Martinez family to manage the harvest right now as they are in the middle of the key part of the harvest.

Buy any Guatemala Finca Vista Hermosa coffee in our cafe or from our online store between now and March 7th 2008 and 100% of the sale will go to Juana and her 11 children.

You can also make a cash donation in the cafe or online right here.

For the months of February and March Noe will be participating in a Barista Exchange at Barefoot Coffee Roasters. Noe will be exchanging information, techniques, coffee passion and stories with the Barefoot Coffee team. This is a unique arrangement that builds great rapport between all of the participants. The high end of the specialty coffee industry is a supportive community that thrives on open communication and co-opetition. Noe will be learning to roast coffee, cup and blend coffees from many different countries and learn new espresso extraction techniques. In exchange Noe will be helping to train Barefoot’s Barista competition team, Monica Hill and Marie Holston, as they prepare for the Western Regional Barista Competition March 29-31^st 2008 in Berkeley, CA. Noe will also be working the espresso bar pulling espressos for customers throughout the month at Barefoot’s coffee bar.

“My passion is coffee. ” Said Noe Castro Cacao. “Working with Barefoot Coffee is a remarkable opportunity for me to advance my coffee knowledge, skill and passion. The level of coffee preparation knowledge in the United States will allow me to achieve my goal of representing Guatemala in the World Barista Championships in 2009.”

And to continue the spirit of the exchange he will also be spending a week or two at Ritual Roasters in San Francisco doing many of the same educational opportunities. This type of open community and exchange is a hallmark of the artisan coffee industry where relationships and results are more important than brand.

Artisan roasters take great pride in hand crafting coffees of the highest magnitude. The multi-layered flavor complexities exceed that of even the finest wines. And many of these roasters take the coffee so seriously that they develop direct relationships with coffee farmers in producing countries to ensure the highest quality and most unique flavors. These relationships also serve to pass more of the profits to the coffee farmers themselves through education and awareness.

“ Noe is an amazing Barista and representative of Guatemala Coffee. “ Mused Andy Newbom, Chief Espresso Officer of Barefoot Coffee Roasters, Inc. “We are honored to be able to host a true champion of great coffee. We met Noe Castro on a trip to visit farms in Guatemala in February 2007, while we were training a group of Guatemalan Baristas and we offered to help Noe refine his presentation for the World competition. His passion, dedication, charm and humility are backed up by his exemplary skill in making great coffee. Damn! This is gonna be a fun month!”

“ In Guatemala most Baristas have little or no contact with coffee roasters.” explained Edwin Martinez, owner of Guatemalan coffee estate Finca Vista Hermosa in Huehuetenango. “For Noe to work directly with an artisan coffee roaster of the level of Barefoot Coffee and to learn roasting, blending and cupping is a huge opportunity for him.”

and here are some of the ones we took: Flickr 

Day six started with a very early morning trip to the award winning Finca Vista Hermosa in the rugged highlands of Huehuetenango in the far north of Guatemala. We drove up for several hours getting higher and higher. Then we turned left onto a very steep dirt road. The very full vanload of 9 people then began to climb the almost vertical moutains on the way up to the Finca. Every time we thought that it could not get any steeper, narrower, more scary or more beautiful views we would round another hairpin turn with maybe 3 inches of raod to spare with a 400 foot straight drop and there would be even higher peaks and more breathtaking views.

Eventually we actually made it up to the Finca at around 5250 feet high. We were now over a mile in the sky. The air is thin, the clouds are in your ears and the jungle is awesome. Everywhere we looked there were beautifully healthy coffee trees heavy laden with ripe coffee cherries. Our intrepid roaster party leap out like excited school children. We swarmed all over the wet mill and the drying patios snapping photos, grabbing half fermented coffee and shrieking with delight. At El Injerto we only saw their trees and the mills but not processing coffee.

As we arrived at Fince Vista Hermosa they were just releasing a perfectly fermented batch of pulped coffee into the washing sluices. It was a very slick and cool operation to witness, but even more fun to actually perform yourself! Yeah the Barefoot crew got into it and we were paddling coffee in the washing stations and cleaning and sorting like mad. Just wait till you see the great photos we got!

We drove down to the bottom of the farm down to around 3800 feet. There we found the most amazing coffee tree. It was so laden with perfectly rip coffee cherries it blew our minds. So being highly competitive Eugenia and Andy decided to have a cherrie picking competetion along with Aaron Blance of Brown Coffee. 15 minutes to pick as much as you could in a picker basket. It was exhilerating and very hard and dirty work. Wait till you see the photos to see who won…

we then went back to the wet mill and saw the workers bring in loads of super ripe coffee cherries for processing. Tons more great photos here. They measured and then water sorted the ripest cherries out to the depulper. Then it is on to the fermentation tank for a 24 hour around the clock watch to ferment the coffee to exactly the right stage, not an hour longer. This is where most of the magic comes from in processing coffee. a tiny misstep here and the entire harvest is ruined.

It then went out on the drying patio to dry and be turned constantly.

day Seveñ””””””””

early in the morning we hiked up to the top of Finca Vista Hermosa up to about 7000 feet high. The view would have been incredible except for the clouds had rolled in. 7000 feet is very high! and very wet and dense jungle.

we saw Catui, Caturra, Bourbon, Margioype coffee trees and quite a few of the Fincas micro’lots. just wait untill new harvest when we get our hands on some of these new micro lots from Finca Vista. New worlds await!

We toured their sheep operation where they create organic natural fertilizer for the plamts and get fresh goat milk. A very impressive and still low tech operation. Gods natural order in evidence.

Later in the afternoon we helped process more coffee and learned more about what makes the farm so special. Then we went to CAFECO the dry mill in Huehue that processes Finca Vista Hermosa coffee. An amazing operation that you just have to see to believe. Wait for photos.

then dinner at the Martinez house with even more of the amazingly tasty food. If we all ate like this we would be healthy, wealthy and wise.

So tomorrow morning we will go to Antigua to see a farm called Filadelfia. Then on too Guatemala City for cupping at Anacafe.

Edwin Martinez of Finca Vista Hermosa and Arturo of El Jinerto. The new generation of coffee quality in Guatemala.