Golden Bean The Americas competition brings together roasters from North and South America, where each roaster submits their exceptional coffees into different judging categories based on their intended use.
Mudhouse submitted 7 coffees in the filter, espresso, milk-based, and elite categories. We are incredibly proud to announce that all 7 of our coffee entries medaled and we are especially proud of our gold medal in the elite category and silver in the espresso category. For the elite category, we took gold using a beautiful, dynamic coffee from Gesha Village Coffee Estate in Ethiopia; the birthplace of the gesha variety, a world-renowned variety for its overall character, florality, and unique flavor characteristics that has since spread around the world. In the espresso category, we took silver with Trust & Believe - a wonderful blend of coffees from Ethiopia and Colombia. Mudhouse is extremely proud of this refined blend showcasing high end fruit notes and port wine character.
Christian Walkup, Mudhouse's assistant roaster, attended the Golden Bean event in Houston, TX. Hear about his experience below:
Golden Bean was a great opportunity to showcase the coffees that we pour our hearts into each week. Behind the scenes, delivering great coffees to our customers is an extensive process from sourcing, critical tasting of the coffee, adjusting the roast profiles to elevate the inherent flavors, and continuing to assure the quality and make adjustments from release to the day it leaves our shelves.
During the competition, attendees of the event including myself also served as judges. All of the tasting was blind, meaning there was no way to tell what coffee you were judging. We provided feedback on all coffee submissions and rated them based on sweetness, acidity, body, and balance. This ended up being a pretty extensive process, where we evaluated 900 coffees over the course of three days.
In conjunction with the judging, there were a series of presentations from coffee importers and other suppliers in the specialty coffee industry. Specialty coffee is a surprisingly small industry so there were familiar faces and some that we have ongoing relationships with. Events like this are great because they build community and deepen our relationships with those in our industry. This is part of what makes specialty coffee interesting and important, where all partners are equally invested in the quality of our product and close relationships allow for transparency because we know where our coffee comes from and whose hands it has touched after leaving the farm.
Overall, I had a great time in Houston. Competing makes us better coffee roasters and challenges us to strive for even better coffee.
Award Winning Specialty Coffee
