5th Annual National Coffee Tasting Championship Comes To Bogotá October 15-18

The 5^th National Championship of Coffee Tasters (V Campeonato Nacional de Catadores) will be held in the ExpoEspeciales Café de Colombia taking place in Bogotá’s Corferias Convention Center from October 15-18. The event is held to select the coffee taster that demonstrates speed, precision, and ability to distinguish the complex flavors found within fine coffees, and also to recognize the work that Colombian coffee tasters exercise in their profession, and to raise the recognition of their art to the level of wine tasters. The event also hopes to stimulate interest in coffee tasting via training, and friendly competition.

Coffee quality is determined primarily by its flavor and aroma. Those who evaluate these characteristics fulfill a very important role in coffee’s success as a product, and this event is meant to be a great opportunity to discover potential new talents in this field. Coffee should be tasted recently roasted and ground, prepared in an infusion to clearly indentify its different elements: fragrance, aroma, acidity, body, and aftertaste.

Each participant is expected to identify the different coffee in a group of three cups placed in a triangle. This is called the “Triangle Test.” A total of eight triangles are used in each round. The eight contestants with the most correct answers, in the fastest time, advance to the semifinal and then final round. The winner of this competition will advance and represent Colombia in the World Tasters Championship (Campeonato Mundial de Catadores).

Coffee is the most widely consumed prepared beverage in the world, with 3 billion cups drank daily, but is also a potentially complex drink, with up to 800 different identifiable aromas.