Expert Jury at United Nations Awards the ‘Best of the Best ‘Coffee in the World

Who grows the best coffee in the world? Last year, during the inaugural Ernesto Illy International Coffee Award presentation, it came down to a tie-breaker. After a final aroma test, it was announced that Ahmed Legesse of Sidamo, Ethiopia, grew the winning beans.

This year, a panel of nine culinary and coffee experts from around the world again took on the difficult task of choosing this year’s “Best of the Best” bean, based on criteria including aromatic richness and complexity, balance and elegance, and aroma intensity.

Illy brought representatives of all 27 finalists to New York City for the proceedings at the United Nations, followed by a gala at the New York Public Library to honor the extraordinary achievements of all growers. In addition to “Best of the Best,” a “Coffee Lovers Choice” award, sponsored by United Airlines and determined by blind consumer tastings, was awarded to Juan Carlos Alvarez from Costa Rica. Katie Lee, renowned chef, cookbook author, and co-host of Food Network’s “The Kitchen,” served as the gala’s emcee.

After rounds of blind tastings at the United Nations by an international independent jury of top culinary and coffee experts, Illycaffè, the global leader in high-quality coffee and a pioneer of large-scale directly-traded coffee, announced that coffee beans grown by Honduras’s José Abelardo Díaz Enamorado were designated “Best of the Best” in the 2017 Ernesto Illy International Coffee Award, unseating last year’s champion.

The top-scoring coffee lot was named from among 27 of the world’s best lots from the 2016/2017 harvests in nine countries, at a gala last night attended by representatives of each grower and delegates from each nation. Alongside Honduras, coffee lots from Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Guatemala, India, Nicaragua and Rwanda were chosen to compete, following intensive analysis at Illy’s Quality Lab at its Trieste, Italy headquarters.

Coffee-lovers will have a chance to judge -- and enjoy -- for themselves, when Illy makes each of nine finalists beans available for purchase as a single origin next year at select Illy Caffè locations. All nine finalists will comprise the legendary Illy blend, known for decades for its unparalleled richness, complexity and consistency.

In 1966, Díaz Enamorado and his wife, Daysi Clemencia Reyes, began planting coffee in the Honduran village of El Chimizal, with an initial area of 3.5 acres. “It is an honor and a pleasure to recognize Mr. Díaz Enamorado for his achievement, and that of all of our finalists, which is nothing less than producing the highest-quality coffee in the world through sustainable methods,’” said Andrea Illy, chairman of Illycaffè.

It’s an understatement to say that Illy Caffè takes coffee seriously. The award is named after Illy’s visionary, second-generation leader, who was “dedicated to excellence in raising coffee of the highest quality through sustainable means,” according to the company. The award celebrates his company’s work with farmers to realize its dream of offering the best coffee to the world, while providing living wages, and leaving as small an ecological footprint as possible.

The award is rooted in a program that Illy established nearly three decades ago in Brazil, originally called Premio de Qualidade do Cafè para Espresso, that drove Illy’s transformation to a company that today purchases nearly 100 percent of its coffee beans directly from producers able to meet its exacting quality standards, at a guaranteed premium over market prices averaging 30 percent. Today, Illy stands as one of the world’s major purchasers of top-quality Arabica coffee directly from producers. By contrast, most coffee continues to be purchased on commodity markets, which cannot guarantee consistent quality nor fare wages to the coffee chain’s most important stakeholders: its 25 million families of growers.

We searched for the best coffeeshops in America, if there’s no Illy nearby.