昨天深夜收到莎拉寄來給今年巴西評審的信,解釋為何取消今年的巴西全國CoE競賽,
以下是來函,引號是我加上去的,因為那是巴西精品咖啡協會的提案,下面是Susie的回函,同樣的,重點我也加上引號：
Dear Brazil 2007 jury-
I would like to inform you that the 2007 Brazil Cup of Excellence competition has been canceled.
The Brazil Specialty Coffee Association requested that this competition be rescheduled to the end of January and that【 the natural processed coffee and the pulped natural processed coffee be cupped together during the same week】 but on separate tracks. This would result in 2 separate award categories with limited winners for each. The ACE Board at their latest meeting voted to forego the 2007 competition rather than accept these protocol changes.
The following is an excerpt from the letter sent to BSCA by the ACE Board of Directors-
The Alliance for Coffee Excellence Board of Directors discussed your most recent proposal at length during our September 7th meeting- BSCA is one of our most important partners in the Cup of Excellence program having been the support and in innovation that started the program in 1999. Brazil and Cup of Excellence share a common history and so your most recent proposal provoked serious discussion about ACE-BSCA-COE and the program goals in general.
The Cup of Excellence has built a worldwide reputation as the premiere competition-auction program. Its main purpose is to discover a country's finest coffees and reward the farmers that produce them. Through all of our struggles over the years ACE has continued to focus on this main principle. All of our future goals and strategies have been developed to fine tune the selection process or the reward process. At the same time we are trying to make the program more sustainable so that the cost is not a tremendous burden even though we still feel the benefits far out weigh the cost every year and that the auction commissions go at least part way in paying for this cost.
The BSCA request to change the competition date to late January and to combine both the pulped natural and the natural processed coffees is, we understand, a request based on the BSCA budget. Holding two separate programs would produce a financial burden that BSCA could not tolerate.
The ACE Board is extremely sympathetic to this request and does not want to negatively impact BSCA in any way 【however we feel that the later schedule will not do justice to the coffees that should normally be cupped in the Fall nor does combining the two types of coffee and limiting the number of entries do justice to the high quality farmers that produce either the pulped naturals or the naturals】.
Therefore it is with disappointment that I tell you that we have rejected the BSCA proposal and would offer the suggestion that BSCA skip the 2007 Cup of Excellence program altogether with the caveat that ACE and BSCA work together to find a better solution for the future.
【We feel that the two harvests are significantly different and each should have its own focus so that Brazil's best farmers can shine equally in the marketplace.】
Cup of Excellence has discovered exceptional coffees and has literally changed the image of Brazil among specialty roasters. I think you would agree that it is not in the best interest of Brazil nor of Cup of Excellence to conduct a competition that may produce results that are less than the success of the past.
We sincerely hope that this cancellation will not negatively affect you or your company and that you will continue to support the exceptional coffees coming from Brazil during this harvest cycle.
Thank you for your support in this matter-
Susie Spindler
