The Global Coffee Awards bring together some of the world's leading coffee roasters and assess coffee batches through independent blind cupping. Only the quality of the cup counts, not the name, brand or reputation.
For the competition, our coffee buyers, Morten Sletten and Alexander Scheen Jensen, chose coffee batches from our existing range. Together with the roastery, they browsed through the range and found two coffee batches for two different categories. They chose the wet-processed Thunguri - Kirinyaga coffee and the berry-dried Rukira - Nyeri coffee. Both from Kenya, but from two different regions: Kirinyaga and Nyeri.
One of the coffee industry's most important competitions
It was the wet-processed batch Thunguri - Kirinyaga that secured bronze in the Filter - Washed category (light roasted, wet-processed coffee).
- Their coffee stood out for its exceptional quality and achieved one of the highest scores in the competition, writes Global Coffee Awards in an email to Solberg & Hansen.
The jury's official feedback describes the coffee as light, balanced and complex:
«With elegant floral notes of elderflower and an interplay of berries, stone fruit and dried apricot, this coffee offers a bright and balanced cup. A hint of pineapple confit adds sweetness and complexity, while the soft mouthfeel ties the flavours together harmoniously.» (Directly translated from English)
The jury highlighted the roasting process as successful and precise, with «high precision and good flavour purity». Receiving such feedback from the jury in one of the coffee industry's most important competitions puts Solberg & Hansen on the map as one of Europe's best speciality coffee roasters.
«The coffee stood out with its exceptional quality.»
- Global Coffee Awards
The level Solberg & Hansen maintains every day
What makes the bronze medal extra meaningful is that Thunguri - Kirinyaga was not roasted as a customised competition coffee. It was sourced directly from our existing range, and is the same coffee offered to our customers in store and online.
This means that the medal is not just the result of a one-off effort for competition use, but proof of the consistently high level of the roastery's daily work. The fact that a coffee from the ordinary range is at the very top in an international blind cup competition emphasises the quality, precision and craftsmanship that goes into Solberg & Hansen's roastery every single day.
Read also: Solberg & Hansen roasts coffee fossil-free
Honourable mention to Rukira
The Rukira - Nyeri berry-dried coffee batch was awarded an honourable mention in the Filter - Natural category (light roasted, berry-dried coffee), a recognition given to entries that are barely out of medal contention.
The jury describes the coffee as «bright and full of character, with clear flavour notes of blackcurrant yoghurt and brown sugar, combined with an exciting, slightly herbal depth reminiscent of tomato and fine herbs such as rosemary and thyme. The result is a balanced cup with a silky mouthfeel and a pleasant, rounded aftertaste.».
They emphasise that the coffee is excellent on its own, with natural sweetness and lively acidity. In order to reach the podium in this category, the jury points out that a somewhat longer development in the roasting process could have resulted in even deeper caramelisation and an even more integrated and harmonious flavour profile.
