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The São Mateus Agropecuaria farm in Brazil has been chosen as the best sustainable coffee in the world after winning the title in the eighth edition of the Ernesto Illy International Coffee Award. Specifically, this Brazilian coffee won in a blind tasting by an international jury of lots of nine coffees from the countries that represent the Illy blend: Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Nicaragua and Rwanda.
The jury defined the winning coffee as “rounded, healthy and full-bodied, with rich and balanced aromas of chocolate, caramel, cane sugar and roasted almonds with a delicately sweet and harmonious finish. It represents the most authentic and refined characteristics of this origin in Brazil”.
On the other hand, Finca Danilandia from Guatemala, owned by Luis Arimany Mondonico, won the Coffee Lovers’ Choice award, granted by a jury of consumers. “The fact that a Brazilian coffee from regenerative agriculture, chosen blindly by a jury of independent experts from among the nine best coffees in the world, won means a lot to me,” said Illy’s president, Andrea Illy.
Ricard Camarena, the Spanish representation
The Spanish note in this event to choose the best sustainable coffee in the world was put by the Valencian chef Ricard Camarena, the only Spanish representative in the jury and who has two Michelin stars and a green star for his commitment to sustainability in his Ricard Camarena Restaurant in Valencia.
Andrea Illy reminded the gala that adapting to climate change requires “better agronomic practices” and the “renewal of plantations with more resistant varieties”. “Regenerative agriculture seems to provide an answer to the first need, and I hope it will become a model for all coffee farming. As far as renewal is concerned, we must act quickly. All this requires investments in the supply chain that we can no longer slow down,” he said.