TechnoServe/U.S. -- The arabica coffee grown by Lya de Castaneda, Alicia Cristina Alabi De Schuck, and Maria Antonieta Dominguez De Arnesen captured three of the top four price-paid-per-pound spots in today's 2004 Cup of Excellence® Internet Auction in El Salvador, its second annual countrywide coffee quality competition, held in San Salvador.

Ms. de Castandea's coffee was the day's top price/pound winner, earning $6.89/pound for 20 bags of green beans (at 69 kilograms each) for a total of $20,670 from bidder Taylor of Harrogate. Ms. De Schuck's coffee captured second place, earning $6.70/pound for 22 bags and a total of $22,110 from buyer Stumptown. And Ms. De Arnesen's coffee was 4th place, earning $4.80/pound for 15 bags and a total of $10,800 from buyer Times Club Inc.

The green beans grown by 35 Salvadoran coffee growers, all chosen on May 14 as winners of the 2004 Cup of Excellence®, were offered for sale today to 83 registered international buyers. During the 4-hour auction, buyers purchased all 880 bags of coffee offered, spending a total of $291,277. The average price paid was $2.44/pound, or almost three times more than the recent average New York market price of arabica beans.* (For a complete list of coffee growers, buyers, and prices paid, visit: http://www.cupofexcellence.org/haauctions.aspx)

Grower Alicia Cristina Alabi De Schuck took over her family business, growing coffee on three farms where she employs 6 full-time and 12 part-time workers. "As a woman this has been a lot of work but it's enjoyable," said Ms. De Schuck. "My goal is for El Salvador to regain international recognition as a producer of high-quality coffee and I fight for this everyday. My father's memory motivates me to work hard on the coffee farm, because I am the only child who can keep up the farm exactly like he used to do. Sometimes I want to give up, but I remember him and how hard he worked and I keep going."

"Alicia Cristina is very involved in her farms," said Alfredo Batlle Ordoñez, who mills coffee for Alicia Cristiana and 1,800 other coffee growers. "She gets advice from the technician, but she is the one who decides what to do, how to do it, and when to do it. Another thing that characterizes Alicia Cristina is that she really takes care of her workers. She has them all enrolled in private health plans. I have even seen her take the family members of the employees to the hospital when the employees couldn't go."

Silvia Larin de Cuenca, is the fourth generation in her family to produce coffee on their family estate. They are vertically integrated: producing, milling and exporting their own coffee. Ms. d Cuenca has 60 permanent and 400 part-time employees. Today she earned $2.50/pound for 22 bags of coffee, for a total of $10,500 from buyer Maruyama Coffee (acting for the Mikatajuku Group). "As a female coffee producer, I feel very proud, satisfied and happy to see that our coffees were highly rated by the international jury and that we have increased our quality from last year," she said. "The Cup of Excellence is an opportunity for us to demonstrate the quality of our coffee to international buyers who will learn to appreciate Salvadoran coffee. When you go to gourmet or specialty coffee shops you see Kenyan, Guatemalan, and Costa Rican coffees, but you don't see Salvadoran coffees, because we have not done much to publicize our quality. The Cup of Excellence is a test for us to prove that we have excellent coffee and we can compete with these other countries that are well known in the gourmet coffee market. I am proud that we have established business with Allegro/Whole Foods and they are regular buyers of our coffee. In their stores it is featured as Salvador origin, from the Larin family farm."

This was the second Cup of Excellence® competition for husband-and-wife growers Alfonso Salaverria and Sonia de Salaverria; today they received $1.55/pound for 28 bags and a total of $6,510 from buyer Schlüter & Maack (Fine Coffees). "We have several different coffee farms and we are participating to try to establish our brand -- within Salvadoran quality coffee and world-class quality coffee -- with the assistance of the Salvadoran Coffee Council, TechnoServe, USAID and Chemonics," said Mr. Salaveriia. "El Salvador was well positioned in the coffee market during the 1970s but we lost that positioning during the war. When the war started in 1979, the international coffee trade was nationalized. They liquidated all the mills and centralized all milling and exportation operations. This caused a great decline in the quality, as all coffee was mixed together and sold under one brand. The traditional brands that had international recognition were lost. In 1985 they re-privatized exportation, but the farms and the mills were in a state of neglect and had to be rebuilt, as well as the export brands. We are now making an effort with the support of international organizations like TechnoServe, the government and national organizations to re-position the country as a producer of good quality coffee so that we can sell at premium prices. We thank and appreciate the support of the organizations that help us."

TechnoServe helped to bring the Cup of Excellence® competition to El Salvador in 2003 and again in 2004, as a way to promote the country as a producer of very high-quality coffees that command premium prices. "Once again, the Cup of Excellence® Competition of 2004 has served as a display case, allowing roasters and buyers in the U.S., Japan and Europe to learn about the excellent quality coffees that are produced in El Salvador," said Roberto Vega Lara, TechnoServe's Country Director in El Salvador. "TechnoServe and all of the other organizers and sponsors hope that, over the long term, new business relationships will be established between these Salvadoran coffee growers and the international buyers in the auction."

For El Salvador's 2004 Cup® event, a total of 403 Arabica samples were submitted by coffee growers from around the country by the April 2 deadline. From April 12-16, a jury of 14 national coffee experts tasted (or "cupped") the coffees and selected 153 of the nation's finest green beans to advance to the second stage of the competition. From May 10-13, the 20-member international jury cupped the 153 semi-finalists and on May 14 selected 35 winning coffees to receive the coveted "Cup of Excellence®" award and be offered for sale to international roasters during today's Internet Auction.

The Cup of Excellence® is a nationwide tasting event created by the Alliance for Coffee Excellence (ACE) to identify, promote and earn better prices for quality coffee. The 2004 El Salvador Cup® was organized by TechnoServe, Chemonics, Consejo Salvadoreño del Café, the Cooperative League of the United States (CLUSA), and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The 2004 "Cup" sponsors are AbeCafe; Agua Cristal; Asociación de Café Especiales; Banco de Fomento Agropecuario; Banco Hipotecario; El Borbullon; La China Coffee; The Coffee Cup; Cofinanzas Selection; Comercial Exportadora; Cooperative of Ciudad Barrios; Cuzcachapa Cooperative; FedEx; Fine Coffee Association; J Hill Beneficio; Jose Antion Salaverria; La Majada Cooperative; Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock; Multisectoral Investment Bank; Plantosa; La Prensa Grafica; ProCafe; Rio Zarco; Rodriguez Ventura; PricewaterhouseCoopers; Sistemas Empresariales de MesoAmerica; Union de Exportadores; El Volcan; and Wild Forest. TechnoServe's involvement as an organizer and sponsor of El Salvador's 2004 Cup of Excellence® is made possible by funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development and The Procter & Gamble Company.

For more information about the 2004 Cup of Excellence® in El Salvador, please contact:

TechnoServe, Inc.

TechnoServe, Inc.

TechnoServe is leading a movement that empowers people in the developing world to build businesses that break the cycle of poverty. Growing enterprises generate jobs and other income opportunities for poor people, enabling them to improve their lives and secure a better future for their families. Since its founding in 1968, the U.S.-based nonprofit has helped to create or expand thousands of businesses, benefiting millions of people in more than 30 countries. The Financial Times has rated TechnoServe one of the top five NGOs for corporate partnerships. Charity Navigator has also awarded its highest Four Star ranking to TechnoServe.

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