Nordic Roaster Competition Rules 2019

The 2019 Nordic Roaster competition will be held at the Nordic Roaster event in Oslo, Norway on the 3rd to the 5th of October.

The aim is to reward the best overall roaster with the title “Nordic Roaster 2019”. 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 that is registered as a business and who is selling roasted coffee roasted by themselves, and is located within the Nordic countries, can apply for participation. In Other words, the competition is for roasters located in the Nordic countries only.

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.

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

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 2019 Nordic Roaster competition will be held at the Nordic Roaster event on on the 3rd to the 5th of October 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 5th of October.

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 at latest 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. Leaf rust resistant hybrid cultivars

In this category each roaster must submit 10 kg of roasted coffee beans of any resistant hybrid 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 can come from any origin but must be a single origin coffee. However it 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.

See below for a list of allowed resistant hybrid cultivars. If a roaster wants to compete with  a resistant hybrid cultivar that is not on the list, please contact jdn@vaa.dk with the name and origin of the cultivar to apply for approval.

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 Leaf rust resistant hybrid 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 3rd of October 2019.

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

  1. Name of the roastery and the city and country it is located in.
  2. Name of the coffee (Farm name, cooperative name, etc)
  3. Country of origin and the area it is from within the country of origin.
  4. Name of the cultivar (variety)
  5. Number of competition category (1 or 2)

This information also has to be sent to mailto:jdn@vaa.dk before September 27th.

Evaluation:

The coffees will be evaluated by the attendees at the 2019 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 SCA cupping forms that is basing their scoring scale on 0 to 100 where 100 points is the best. The cropster cupping app will be used to collect all scores in order to avoid mistakes and provide transparent and accurate scoring.

After each round of cupping, the attendee will submit their scores via the cropster cupping app. The auditors will double check that all scores have been submitted correctly before the final calculations are approved and published.

The roasters will be ranked by each coffee’s average score in each category. The overall winner is calculated by calculating the overall average score. This is done by adding the two scores corresponding to the roasters submitted coffees in each category together whereby the sum is divided 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 2019”.

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 5th of October during the Nordic roaster dinner where one representative from each competing roaster must be present.

Criterias for submitting valid scores

The main criterias in order to be an evaluator in each round is that 10 scores must be submitted and they all need to be above 80 points.

  • If an evaluator has only submitted 9 scores or less above 80 points in one category the evaluator is not eligible to score the entire round and all her / his scores are removed from the round. The evaluator can however score in the second round / category because the average score is calculated and each roaster will have the same amount of scores in each round. In other words, evaluators who have scored one or more coffees under 80 points will be removed from the final evaluation of all coffees within the category / round.
  • Evaluators who have submitted less than 10 scores will also be removed from the final evaluation of all coffees within the category / round.
  • If a score is submitted after the cupping session is closed, the score will not be counted in the competition. This is because we will announce the scores from each round after each cupping session.

Resistant varieties for NRC 2019:

  • Acaia
  • Anacafe 14 (Catimor)
  • Arla
  • Ateng
  • Batian
  • Bogor Prada
  • Castillo
  • Catiga MG2
  • Catugua
  • Catimor
  • Catimor 129 (Cat129, Nyika)
  • Catisic (Catimor)
  • Catrenic
  • Catucai
  • Centroamericano (H1)
  • Costa Rica 95 / CR95 (Catimor)
  • Cuscatleco (Sarchimor)
  • Devamachy
  • Iapar 59 (Sarchimor)
  • Icafe 95
  • Icatú
  • Ihcafe 90 (Catimor)
  • Ipar 103
  • Lempira
  • Limani (Sarchimor)
  • Maracatu
  • Marsellesa (Sarchimor)
  • Milenio (h10)
  • Mundo Maya (EC16)
  • Obata (Sarchimor)
  • Oro Azteca (Catimor)
  • Parainema (Sarchimor)
  • Paraiso
  • Pop 3303/21
  • RAB C15
  • Robusta
  • Ruiru 11
  • Sarchimor
  • Selection 9 (Sln9)
  • Starmaya
  • Tabi
  • Tupi
  • T5175 (Catimor)
  • T5296 (Sarchimor)
  • T8667 (Catimor)

If a roaster wants to compete with  a resistant hybrid cultivar that is not on the list, please contact jdn@vaa.dk with the name and origin of the cultivar to apply for approval.