Training Log by Hannes Fendrish - How expensive is it to compete?

Green Coffee Selection for competition To me, one of the best things about competing are the quest to find the best green coffee. During my work almost every week we are coming across very unique green coffees and whenever I have something striking I ask myself if this could be a coffee to be used for Brewers Cup competition.

Making a selection for a competition is influenced by multiple questions:

Is this green coffee standing out on a cupping table?
How does the coffee fit into the competition score sheet?
Does this green coffee, respectively the producer, offer an interesting story that I want to support through my competition participation?

Also financial and availability questions matter:

Is this green coffee affordable at all for me/ my company? Has the lot sufficient volume that the coffee can be used in production roastings? The questions of availability have interestingly enough changed in the last few years.

Nowadays we start seeing more and more competitors using just sample roasts for competition purposes. It’s an interesting phenomenon because one can basically run a competition with only possessing 1 or 2kg green coffee of a certain lot.

This makes competing with expensive coffee easier and has opened doors for more diverse green coffee sources. However, the downside for the producer is that he or she cannot sell his very expensive top lots not that easy anymore I assume.