Winning coffee of the National Barista Championship has its origin at CATIE

• Genetic materials from CATIE's International Coffee Collection gave life to the three beverages elaborated by the winner of the championship, Ricardo Azofeifa.

May 2, 2022. The National Barista Championship 2022, in Costa Rica, was held last April to expose the quality of Costa Rican coffee and to get to know its different varieties. For this occasion, Ricardo Azofeifa, representative of Cafetalera Orígenes, was the great winner, who had genetic materials from the International Coffee Collection of CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research Center) for the competition.

In recent years, Azofeifa has been a partner of CATIE in the development of new genetic materials, which motivated it to use four of them for its participation in this important championship. After a previous research on the optimal ripening of fruits for harvesting, drying process, roasting curve and calibration of espresso variables, the selected genetic materials were Coffea eugenioides, Tanzania, ET-47, and Geisha. These last two were distributed by CATIE many years ago and were produced in the Orígenes farm, which is located in the Brunca zone.

"This achievement marks a historic milestone, since it is the first time that species other than Arabica, such as Coffea eugenioides and Tanzania, have been used in the National Barista Championship. These species entered CATIE in 1996 and as of 2015 an evaluation process was initiated that allowed us to know their potential in quality. This germplasm continues in the research phase and is expected to be commercially released in the future for the benefit of coffee growers and consumers," said William Solano, researcher in plant genetic resources at CATIE.

Given the vulnerability that climate change represents for genetic diversity, the use of new germplasm represents a key alternative for the sustainable assurance of the coffee value chain.

The event was attended by eight competitors, three of whom had previously been national champions and representatives for Costa Rica in the World Barista Championship.