The Nordic Roaster competition will be held at the Nordic Roaster event on the 30th of October. The aim is to reward the best overall roaster with the title “Nordic Roaster 2014”. The title is for the winner to use during its reigning year and can be used only by the winner.
Application process:
The competition is open only to 10 roasters.
Any roaster, regardless of geographic location, that is registered as a business and who is selling roasted coffee, roasted by themselves, can apply for participation.
The competition fee is 100 euro.
Since it is a Nordic Roaster Competition only applying roasters located in the Nordic countries will be granted a spot in the competition until the 31 August 2014. (The Nordic countries are defined as Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Åland Islands, the Faroe Islands and Greenland.)
After the 1. September any roaster can be granted a spot in the competition given that there are less than 10 Nordic roasters that have applied before the 31st of August.
Roasters located outside the Nordic countries can apply before 1. September, but will not be granted a spot in the competition until the 1st of September and will only be granted a spot if there are less than 10 Nordic roasters competing.
The first who pay the competition fee will be the first in line to enter the competition. Competition fee will be refunded to those that has paid, and not having their application granted. All applications will be treated by the “first come, first serve” principal.
The Competition
The competition will take place at the meet and greet party on the 30th of October at 18:30 (6.30pm) to 20:30 (8.30pm) at the THE FACTORY Roast Lab Copenhagen. Refshalevej 163a st.th, 1432 København K . The competition will take 3 hours.
There will be two (2) categories in the competition.
- Washed Central-American non-Geisha coffee
In this category each roaster must submit 4 kg of a coffee from Central-America. The coffee can be from any country in Central-America (Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama or Belize) and can be of any traditional cultivar except Geisha / Gesha and has to be processed by traditional washed, eco pulped or semi-washed methods where the pulp and mucilage has been removed before drying. The category is not open for natural processed coffees, pulped natural or honey processed coffees where the coffee has been dried in contact with mucilage or pulp.. The coffee must be a single origin coffee, but can be a blend of coffees from smallholder farmers within one country.
- Washed Kenyan or Ethiopian coffee
In this category each roaster must submit 4 kg of roasted coffee beans of any washed coffee, from Kenya or Ethiopia. There are no limitations to cultivars used to produce the coffee. The coffee must be a single origin coffee, meaning it can only come from one farm or one cooperative.
Submitting coffees:
All competing roasters must submit 4 kilos of each coffee for each category. The coffee must be roasted by the competing roaster and must be available for sale from the roastery at the moment of the competition.
The roaster must mark each coffee bag with the following information:
- Name of the roastery and the city and country it is located in.
- Name of the coffee (Farm name, cooperative name, etc)
- Country of origin and the area it is from within the country of origin.
- Name of the cultivar (variety)
- What post-harvest process was used
This information also has to be sent to NR Adm. before October 1st.
Evaluation:
The coffees will be evaluated by the attendees at the 2014 Nordic Roaster Forum.
The coffees will be evaluated by the cup-tasting method and will be tasted blind, meaning the attendees will not know which coffees they are tasting and from which roaster they were submitted.
The cupping brewing ratio will be 60 grams to 1000 grams of water. The extraction % will be set by the Nordic Roaster Forum organizing committee according to the grinder used.
The water will be filtered Copenhagen water set to a tds of 60- 70ppm ( appr. 110 micro siemens conductivity) by using reverse osmosis filters with bypass – Carbon hardness : 2º Total Hardness : 2º
All attendees will submit one score sheet for each category.
The score sheets to be used is the same as the SCAA cupping forms that is basing their scoring scale on 0 to 100 where 100 points is the best.
After each round of cupping, the attendee will calculate their scores and submit the score sheet to the auditors. The auditors will calculate each coffee’s average score in each category and then add the two scores corresponding to one roasters submitted coffees together. The best possible score for one roaster can be 200 points.
The roaster that gets the best total score will be rewarded the title “Nordic Roaster 2014”.
In case of a split decision, the one roaster with the most total top scores will win.
There can only be one winner of the “Nordic Roaster 2014” title and there will be no category winners announced. The winner will get the Nordic Roaster trophy to keep until the next Nordic roaster competition is held.
The winner will be announced on Saturday the 1st of November during the Nordic roaster dinner.
Feedback session:
After the two rounds of cupping and while the attendees are waiting for the scores to be added, there will be a 30 minute feedback round where the coffees are unveiled.
To make it a bit exciting, the attendees will be asked what their total score was and then give some comments on the coffees during this session.
This way the roasters can get some live feedback on their coffees from the attendees and roasters will get a feeling on which coffees are most likely to win.