El Salvador Cup of Excellence 2006

I slacked off after my quadruple header of Central Cup of Excellences (sp?) and never put the pictures up. Well, I don't always make travelogs, but if I take pictures I ususally edit them, write something and put them up. But 4 competitions in a row (actually, 5 counting Panama) that's just too much!

click for the action movie!

Anyway, Savador was the second to last. We were sequestered at a resort on the coast, The Decameron . Sounds pretty nice, eh? Well, I like to be out and about more, and it was a little like prison (maybe a white collar prison). In fact, there was torture involved: the entertainment. Things like mandatory dance contests and such ... humiliating and embarassing, and even worse because you are supposed to enjoy it, and you're not. Even more, you feel like a bad guest because you are not having fun. Anyway, after cupping, there was a nice pool, and we played some fun beach volleyball - a good way to get excess caffeine out of your system. Oh, the other problem: a bunch of US Coast Guard on leave came in, and made big fools of themselves ... not all of them, but some of them. They terrorized the staff, broke signs and mirrors, just the kind of things young drunk people do. Now, if we were off ion the coffee areas for the cupping, the chances of getting penned in with a bunch of drunk Coasties, and being forced to embarass yourself in front of everone for entertainment ... well, chances would be slim.

and the winner is ... Alfred Hitchcock. (uncanny)

Tim Chapdelaine aims for with cup with a mouthload of spit. Isn’t cupping glamorous? Tim hails from Minnesota, wrks for Volcafe, and is none to take pause between his many long, entertaining, fabulations.

Mark Zwahl is a roaster from Lawrence Kansas, on both his first trip to origin and his forst Cup of Excellence. That is not an easy task. As an interesting subplot, he got West Nile right in his own Kansasian (?) backyard several years ago!

Ms Yuko Yamada Itoi from Times Club is one of the nicest, quietest cuppers, but when she likes a coffee she has no problem standing aginst the group and explaining its qualities!

Trish Skeie – I cam only hope I spelled her name correctly. Trish is the green coffee buyer for Zoka Coffee Roasters in Seattle, and one of the people I was really looking forward to meeting on this trip. She has years of roasting, barista, and green buying experience in both the US and Norway, and is one of the most down-to-earth people you will meet in coffee. But remember Trish, you owe me – I took the Hula bullet for you!

Mix a Kiwi and a Churasqeuria Brazil Style and you have Marco, New Zealander from Sao Paolo. He also plays some mean beach volleyball.

Cupping room madness at the Del Cameron Resort.  All in all, what a great place to hold a coffee event. For those of us who know El Salvador, who have experience with the mills and the farms, it was a wonderful change. For first time jurors, well … it’s better when the event is held in the middle of coffee farms rather than on a resort-compound. The facilities were great for cupping though, and everything went very smoothly. If I don’t have a chance to mention it again, the roasting of the samples was PERFECT.

A trip to a mill. A trip to a wacky waterslide park.  Must they be mutually exclusive? Well, next year they will add a race track, and you have an obscene combination of good times for the kinds and the agriculture industry. Galicia Parque Acuatico. The power switches for the mill equipment at Galicia Parque Acuatico.

The hand sorting room. The coffee is quite low grown so I am  not sure what the point is of extra preparation.

Kentaro Maruyama, natural comedian, heretofore referred to as KMAR. Here he sticks his hand into a primitive 10 Lb Pinhalense propane roaster from Brazil,

Oh god, it’s Luau night.. No good can come from this… Yes, no good at all. Thankfully there are no pictures of me (center) stripped to the waist, doing my version of the hula, which was basically (as a form of mocking the whole %#$ing thing) a robot dance followed b y my version of a narcoleptic seizure on the ground. Remember fellow cuppers, I took one for the group. I paid my dues, you all owe me!

Tineke was a real sweetheart, working for a company that pays equal attention to cigars, tea and coffee. My only question about her: how can a fine lady like this from northern Europe have a tan 10x darker than an outdoorsy guy like me from Cali? Hmmmm….

At the awards, we have one Bill Swoope, looking like he wants to kick the photographers butt, Cy from Monmouth, and John from Kaffa in Holland.

D-Dawg making like  automaton. Duane from Stumptown, Portland

Plastic birds. They were everywhere. Can’t fool me though.

No disrepect, but in general the national anthems in C America are about 38 minutes long. And they keep faking you out. There’s part 1, then it switches gear into part 2, then by chorus 28, stanza 14 you are about to keel over.

And the winner is …Alfred Hitchcock! There was something incredibly uncanny about that coffee. In fact, I wrote “McGuffin” on the cupping form, without really knowing why. Suddenly it all made sense.

The press descends.

Leah, the one with the biting wit (but you can’t hide it, she’s a sweetheart).

Of course, KMAR and TBONE (me) had our moments. I don’t know what I did wrong but he kept saying “I won’t wait for my Coffee Yakuza, I Karate your ass right NOW!”

Plastic birds. They were everywhere. Can’t fool me though.

And the winner is …Alfred Hitchcock! There was something incredibly uncanny about that coffee. In fact, I wrote “McGuffin” on the cupping form, without really knowing why. Suddenly it all made sense.

The press descends.