Rwanda Cup of Oppulence, 2010

So I took this camera to Rwanda for the Cup of Excellence competition and, crazy me, I ended up with a cool 600 photos. I pared it down to 265 "must-see" images and a few of them actually have something to do with coffee! While some airline snafus made the travel a bit harsh, and the food in East Rwanda was, ack, disturbing, it was a great trip. The jury was a great international blend, the coffees were very nice, and my visits to washing stations after the event were very fruitful. I hope you enjoy the images and that the captions impart a little information about how beautiful Rwanda truly is, how incredibly kind the people are, and how sweet the coffees can be. -Tom

Laico Hotel, Kigali through the screen Another trip, and it always starts in a boring hotel in the capital city. In this case it is the...	Welcome to Kayonza ... At least the Laico has some options for breakfast. This time the cupping was held in the Eastern...	Dereva Hotel Recycles Beer bottles used as landcape edging. Clever. Why Heinekin and not Mutzig? Rwanda
Cupping begins ... The next day we have calibration cupping at the facility in Kayonza (barely finished the week...	Cupping room at Kanyoza, Rwanda, in the East. Brand new cupping facility built by OCIRcafe (the Rwanda coffee farmer and industry agency) near...	Paul Songer and Susie Spindler Another classic "Paul and Susie photo". Susie is the CoE director, Paul the head judge. Someday...
The Paul Songer Acid Test Citric, Fruit Acids (Citric 80% plus 10% Malic and 10% quinic, a very pleasant blend), Fruit...	Paul whips out the charts One great benefit to having Paul as head judge is that you actually learn a lot - he always...	The jury gets a talking to... Why is everybody looking down? Shame? Well, after calibration there was some reason for shame...
Water pouring in Rwanda Obligatory photo of the water being poured. Most of the support staff was from the National Jury...	The cupping room, Rwanda CoE 2010 Obligatory cupping room overview photo. Stiener rocked the shorts the whole time. Smart. The...	Dennis Jackson and Uwe Dennis, who some believed was actually a wizard, performing some coffee magic. Uwe, just trying...
Tharcisse from Burundi, cupping the final round Final round. We had 2 cuppers from Burundi at the event, Tharcisse being a coordinator for...	Tim Schilling joins to cup the final table Tim Schilling started the PEARL project on Burundi which became the SPREAD project, neither of...	BK and Thompson and BK BK Kim from Coffee Libre in South Korea. The best coffee t shirt ever is from Coffee Libre. So...