FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MISSOULA, MT (June 22, 2007) - The first Costa Rica Cup of Excellence® competition culminated on July 21, 2007 with winning coffees being auctioned off to buyers from around the globe. Twenty-five lots, varying in size from 10 to 39 bags, were auctioned off, bringing in an average price of $4.64/lot.

The winning coffee, Cerro Paldo, hails from Los Santos, a region not often recognized. Receiving a score of 92.42 from the International Jury during the COE competition, the 12-bag lot sold for an auction price of $21.35 to Mercanta The Coffee Hunters and Fortnum & Mason London.

Farmer Ronald Monge Valverde was filled with tension during the COE awards ceremony held on the INCAE campus in San Jose, Costa Rica on May 18, 2007. Upon announcing his farm as the top lot, Monge Valverde expressed gratitude to all who helped make this possible. The Cerro Paldo coffee was noted as having a multidimensional cup with complex fruit acidity, along with jasmine and cherry flavor notes that were harmonious from beginning to end. This unique coffee will be offered in September at the historic London specialty food store, Fortnum & Mason, as part of the retailer’s tercentenary celebration. Cerro Paldo will be the cornerstone of the prestigious retailer’s launch of a new coffee range.

Several small farms, including the Cerro Paldo farm, made a respectable showing throughout the COE competition, thus providing small farmers in Costa Rica with a perfect example of how hard work and a determined focus on creating a high quality coffee enables them to compete with other larger farms on an international stage. Following the auction, Monge Valverde of Cerro Paldo commented, “I am very happy with the results. I am also surprised that we had the highest price, and I hope to continue participating in the Cup of Excellence in the future.”

High demand in the past for COE coffees led Kaffebrenneriet, a roaster/retailer based in Oslo, Norway to purchase three separate coffees, all which will be marketed to customers in Norway during Christmastime. The three coffees purchased, Guarumal , La Edda S.A., and El Cedral, will introduce customers to the high quality COE coffees available from Costa Rica.

“We are excited about participating in the auction for the first time,” said Carlos Luis Rojas Salas of Guarumal, whose coffee received $7.50/lb. at auction. “After all these years of hard work our family has put into coffee, we have finally received a good prize for our efforts.”

The successful auction serves as a foundation for next year’s COE competitions and gives farmers, large and small, the incentive to continue efforts towards producing high quality coffees.

Since it’s beginnings in 1999, the Cup of Excellence® program has hosted programs in Brazil, Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica, Bolivia and Colombia. The next COE auction is scheduled for June 28, 2007 in El Salvador, followed by Honduras on July 10, 2007.

The Cup of Excellence program is managed by the non-profit Alliance for Coffee Excellence, Inc, The state of the art Cup of Excellence auction has been managed in partnership with CommoditiesOne, a leading software development firm since 2002. For more information about the Cup of Excellence program, to become a member log on to www.cupofexcellence.org.