For Immediate Release:

Missoula MT. (June 16, 2005)- Thirty-five Nicaraguan competition-winning coffees were sold today during a worldwide Internet auction that saw high bids placed on multiple coffee lots. After the nearly four-hour auction was over it was the fifth place coffee that had received the highest bid. Several US roasters battling during the last closing minutes paid $8.25lb. for the 20 bag lot. Chicago based Intelligentsia placed the winning bid for the group of roasters who will share the lot from Esteli. Portland's Stumptown Coffee, Boston's Terroir Select, The Coffee Tree Roasters from Pittsburgh, Breaking New Grounds of New Hampshire and Ecco Caffe of Santa Rosa, California each won the right to sell a portion of the lot to their customers.

Japanese importer Wataru & Co. entered the top bid for the first place coffee for C& C at $8.05lb. Coffee Masters of Chicago, paid $6.40 lb for second place. Japanese based Maruyama and the Mikatajuku-group won the bid for the third place coffee. $5.60 lb bought the fourth place coffee which sold to several European companies that included UK's Mercanta the Coffee Hunters, The Coffee Company based in the Netherlands, Cafes El Magnifico of Spain Has Bean, a small UK roaster and Kaffitar of Finland, The 12th place coffee received a surprising bid of $7.80lb. by a group of US roasters and the $15th place coffee received a high bid of $6.55 by the large UK roaster, Taylors of Harrogate.

Equal Exchange Coffee, Sweet Maria's, The Roasterie, Oren's Daily Roast, Origins Coffee, Caffe Pronto, Timothy's Coffees of the World, and Volcafe Specialty Coffee bidding for Zoka Coffee, PT's Coffee, and Ecco Caffe rounded out the North American buyers. Other European buyers included The Golden Coffee Box/Boot Koffie, Inter American Coffee GmbH and Solberg & Hansen for Kaffebrenneriet. Additional Japanese winning bidders were Toa Coffee, Time's Club, Caravan Coffee Company, Nippon Trading Company, Kato Coffee, Coffee Meikan, Wataru & Company, and a group consisting of Arab Coffee, Asahi Coffee, and Tashiro Coffee.

The average price for all of today's auctioned coffees was $3.43lb. Seven of the coffees fetched over $5.00 lb. Sixteen of the thirty-five winning lots will be shipped to Japan after final processing, twelve to North America and seven to Europe. The bidding was watched by the Nicaragua winning farmers who had gathered in Managua for the occasion as well as several thousand who logged in to the Cup of Excellence home page to monitor the results.

This is the 18th auction that the Cup of Excellence program has successfully completed. The final Central American 2005 Cup of Excellence auction will be held for the El Salvador winners on June 29th .

For more information about the competition process, the international jury, the winning farms, membership, samples, or to register for the auction, log on to www.cupofexcellence.org. The Cup of Excellence program is managed by the non-profit Alliance for Coffee Excellence, Inc. in partnership with coffee producing countries.