To Celebrate the Come Back of La Palma & El Tucán
20 boxes. 6 kilos each. For competitors who have been on a national stage before, are going back, and are paying for it themselves.
20 boxes. 6 kilos each. For competitors who have been on a national stage before, are going back, and are paying for it themselves.
A barista on the world stage spent somewhere between ten and twelve thousand dollars of their own money last year, before buying a single gram of competition coffee. The World Barista Champion takes home five thousand euros. Do that arithmetic and you can see what the circuit is slowly selecting for. Not who trained hardest. Who could afford it.
We know which side of that we were on. Competitors put our coffee on their cards when nobody was paying them to, back when we were a young finca with one ferment tank, no auction record, and a varietal nobody outside Cundinamarca had heard of. Roasters paid a fair price for our first lots before we had anything to show for it. They built this farm with us.
So BEAT is not charity. It is returning something to a system that is tilting, and it goes to the people the tilt hits hardest: the ones who keep going back with nobody covering the bill.
20 boxes. 6 kilos each. No bidding war. Just craft.
Sources: Perfect Daily Grind · Coffee Intelligence · The Pourover · Lux Cafe Club
Every podium starts with someone deciding to apply — and a lot small enough to fit in a 6 kg box.
There are only twenty, so we have had to draw lines. These are ours, written plainly so you don't waste an afternoon on a video that was never going to qualify.
Submit a 2 — 2.5 minute video. Tell us who you are, what you brew, and why it matters.
A jury of working baristas and roasters reviews against a transparent rubric. Your craft is what's being judged — not your reach.
We send the 20 selected competitors two or three roasted samples from the harvest. You taste, you decide, and we ship 6 kg of the lot you picked, green. Variety, fermentation and drying data come with it.
Freight and import duties are at the recipient's cost. We handle the export paperwork and hunt down the best rate we can find, but the shipping itself we can't cover.
Direct line to our processing team for anything technical. And we would love to follow your season: send us photos, clips, voice notes, whatever you feel like sharing, and we'll put your journey and this collaboration on our channels, always with your name on it. Anything you'd rather keep to yourself, just say so.
Twenty-three champions and finalists have chosen La Palma & El Tucán on the world's biggest stages since 2016. A tribute to the dedication and mastery of those who have carried the spirit of Colombian coffee that far.
This picture is from the day Jooyeon Jeon won the 2019 World Barista Championship in Boston. She used a coffee from our farm. No sponsorship, no contract, no logo on her stage. She picked our Sidra because it was good.
What stayed with me was the risk she took. She bet a year of preparation on one producer's harvest, on us, and she had no reason to. Plenty of competitors did the same before her and after her. That trust is what built this farm.
Every coffee on the wall above was paid for, by the competitors themselves or by the people around them. They earned it. With BEAT we want to take one thing off that list. Twenty boxes a year, so the coffee is not the part that stops you.
Submissions close at midnight EST. The moment you apply, the BEAT Welcome Kit lands in your inbox — a complete PDF with the rubric, the video brief, brand assets you can use in your routine, and a private Q&A line to our processing team.
You taste two or three roasted samples, pick your lot, and receive 6 kg of it green with its full processing data. Then we follow your season together and share your story across LP&ET channels, always with your name on it.
You're invited to become a BEAT Ambassador in your country — help organize a local cupping with our team and stay in the network for next year.
Tell us who you are, where you're competing, and why this craft matters to you. The form takes about 5 minutes. Your submission is locked once you press send.
You'll hear from the BEAT jury within 14 days at the email you provided. In the meantime, follow @lapalmayeltucan for updates and the public voting round.
— Felipe & the LP&ET team