Competitions to select and reward fine quality coffee have been widely organized by many producing countries with a need to promote coffee quality and gain an edge in coffee exports. In fact these events are strongly supported by coffee companies, coffee shops and manufacturers of coffee machines to achieve greater impact and enhance the image of coffee drinking in markets, which have vast potentials for future growth.
An increasing number of Coffee Festivals and Competitions are being organized in various coffee producing countries like Brazil, Guatemala, Colombia, Hawaii etc., for promoting relationship between the farmers, roasters and buyers which creates the possibility for the development of a long term partnership in coffee marketing and to promote specialty coffees.
With this perspective in view, the Coffee Board of India has launched an annual competition entitled "Flavour of India-The Fine Cup Awards" during 2002, to select the
best coffees from different regions and also under different categories. The competition was aimed at sensitizing the coffee growers about the importance of cupping for overall quality upgradation of coffee and also to project to the global consumers the unique flavour profile of Indian coffees. The inaugural competition held in conjunction with the "India International Coffee Festival-2002" was a huge success with about 350 entries.
Ever since its first launch in 2002, Coffee Board has been trying out many new innovations for the success of the competition. One such step was to conduct the final cupping session in some strategic countries from the perspective of specialty coffee market. The main objective was to get sufficient number of expert cuppers for the International Jury
As in the previous years, Board had organized the final cupping session of "Flavour of India - Fine Cup Awards 2005" at Seattle, USA on 13th April 2005 to coincide with the 17`h Annual Conference & Exhibition of the Specialty Coffee Association of America.
