Nordic Roaster Competition 2018 Rules

Nordic Roaster Competition Rules 2018

The 2018 Nordic Roaster competition will be held at the Nordic Roaster event in Oslo, Norway on the 20th to the 22nd September.

The aim is to reward the best overall roaster with the title “Nordic Roaster 2018”. The title is for the winner to use during its reigning year and can be used only by the winner.

Application process:

The competition is open only to 10 roasters.

Any roaster, regardless of geographic location, that is registered as a business and who is selling roasted coffee, roasted by themselves, can apply for participation.

The competition fee is € 780,- (euro) and includes one attendee ticket to the Nordic Roaster Forum.

Since it is a Nordic Roaster Competition only applying roasters located in the  Nordic countries will be granted a spot in the competition until the 30th of July 2018.

(The Nordic countries are defined as Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Åland Islands, the Faroe Islands and Greenland.)

After the 1st of August any roaster can be granted a spot in the competition given that there are less than 10 Nordic roasters that have applied before the 30th of July.

Roasters located outside the Nordic countries can apply before 30th of July, but will not be granted a spot in the competition until the 1st of August and will only be granted a spot if there are less than 10 Nordic roasters competing.

The first who pay the competition fee will be the first in line to enter the competition.

Competition fee will be refunded to those that has paid, and not having their application granted.

All applications will be treated by the “first come, first serve” principal.

 

The Competition

The 2018 Nordic Roaster competition will be held at the Nordic Roaster event on the 20th to the 22nd of September in Oslo Norway.

Each competing roastery must have one person present during the evaluation of the coffees on both evaluation days and also at the award ceremony on Saturday the 22nd of September.

There will be two (2) categories in the competition:

1.       Provided coffee

In this category each roaster will be given 30 kilos of coffee by the Nordic Roaster Forum coffee sponsor. All roasters will be given the same coffee and the coffee will be sent to the roaster in advance prior to the competition. We are aiming to send out the coffees in early September. Information on this coffee will also be given when the coffees are sent out.

All competing roasters will have to roast the provided coffee in line with their preference and style on their roaster of choice. Each roaster must submit 10 kilos of roasted coffee beans for the competition packed in 100g bags.

2.       Pacamara cultivar

In this category each roaster must submit 10 kg of roasted coffee beans of the Pacamara cultivar. The coffee can be processed in any way. For example washed, natural processed coffees, pulped natural or honey processed coffees where the coffee has been dried in contact with mucilage or pulp are all allowed. Additional flavour additives are not allowed. The coffee must be a single origin coffee, but can be a blend of coffees from smallholder farmers within one country for example a cooperative coffee. Each roaster must submit 10 kilos of roasted coffee beans for the competition packed in 100g bags.

 

Submitting coffees:

All competing roasters must submit 10 kilos of coffee in each category all packed in 100 gram bags. The coffees in both categories must be roasted by the competing roaster and the coffee from the Pacamara cultivar category must be available for sale from the roastery at the moment or after the competition.

The coffee has to be delivered to Jens Nørgaard at the event venue in Oslo, Norway, before 17:00am on Thursday the 20th of September 2018.

The roaster shall pack all the coffee in 100g bags and must mark each coffee bag with the following information:

Name of the roastery and the city and country it is located in.
Name of the coffee (Farm name, cooperative name, etc)
Country of origin and the area it is from within the country of origin.
Name of the cultivar (variety)
Number of competition category (1 or 2)
This information also has to be sent to jdn@vaa.dk before September 17th.

 

Evaluation:

The coffees will be evaluated by the attendees at the 2018 Nordic Roaster Forum.

The coffees will be evaluated by the cup-tasting method and will be tasted blind, meaning the attendees will not know which coffees they are tasting and from which roaster they were submitted.

There will be one cupping on the Friday and one on the Saturday.

The cupping brewing ratio will be 60 grams to 1000 grams of water. The extraction % will be set by the Nordic Roaster Forum organizing committee according to the grinder used.  As an example we have previously used a Mahlkönig EK 43 grinder and the cupping strength was  approximately TDS 1,1 – 1,2 yielding an extraction % of 19,5 – 21,5.

Bare in mind that all coffees will extract slightly different. We aim for an average good extraction for all coffees.

The water will be filtered Oslo City water.

The normal mineral composition of the Oslo water is about:

GH: 2,5

KH: 2,0

pH: 7-8

TDS: 55-100

All attendees will submit one score sheet for each category.

The score sheets to be used is the same as the Cup of Excellence or SCA cupping forms that is basing their scoring scale on 0 to 100 where 100 points is the best.

 

After each round of cupping, the attendee will calculate their scores and submit the score sheet to the auditors. The auditors will calculate each coffee’s average score in each category and then add the two scores corresponding to one roasters submitted coffees together and divide on two. The best possible score for one roaster can be 100 points.

The roaster that gets the best total score will be rewarded the title “Nordic Roaster 2018”.

In case of a split decision, the one roaster with the most total top scores will win.

There can only be one winner of the “Nordic Roaster 2018” title however the winner of each category will also be announced. The full results will be published on the Nordicbaristacup.com web site. The winner will get the Nordic Roaster trophy to keep until the next Nordic roaster competition is held.

 

The winner will be announced on Saturday the 22nd of September during the Nordic roaster dinner where one representative from each competing roaster must be present.