The ones that sparkle

Getting your hands on a Cup of Excellence (COE)-winning coffee takes patience and commitment. The real fun for Australian buyers starts in the early hours of the morning when international online auctions commence, but the game’s not over until a final bid is made, the countdown clock expires, and the hammer falls.

“The longest auction I’ve ever experienced was early 14 hours for a COE coffee,” says Will Young, Campos Coffee Founder and Chairman of the Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE), the association that runs the COE competitions and auctions.

“My wife went to sleep and I was still bidding when she woke up. I was making breakfast – still bidding. We had people over – still bidding. I took my phone everywhere with me that day, even bidding as I walked the dog. I wasn’t going to stop until we won. It was a coffee we had to have.”

The COE has been discovering coffees, rewarding growers, and creating markets for exemplary coffees since 1999. Each year, thousands of coffees are submitted for consideration, with winning