Recently, Colombia held the ninth edition of Land of Diversity, the LOD competition and auction. Over a three-month period, the competition received coffees submitted by a total of 1018 growers from 13 coffee-producing regions in Colombia. After two rounds of screening, 30 coffees were ultimately selected by international judges for the final batch, and at the same time the five special LOD trait awards were chosen.

This LOD auction held a total of 546 bids online and offline. The top lot was a washed Geisha from Finca Anona in Buesaco, Narino Province, with a winning bid of 66.50 USD/lb. The average price of this auction reached 20.06 USD/lb, and the total auction value reached 375,637.01 USD.

You may be curious about what this Colombian LOD competition is. In fact, this LOD competition is similar to the Cup of Excellence (COE) and Best of Panama (BOP), and is a national-level coffee quality competition in Colombia.

However, this competition does not have as long a history as BOP, and to date only 9 editions of the LOD competition have been held. As early as 2005, Colombia began holding the COE competition, until in 2016 the Colombian Coffee Growers Federation (FNC) decided to break away from the COE judging system and began independently holding a national-level coffee quality competition. This competition is the Colombia Land of Diversity (LOD).

According to reports, the competition has now become part of the FNC's strategic planning, aiming to enhance the quality, differentiation and added value of Colombian coffee across the entire coffee value chain, spread the diversity and multiplicity of Colombian coffee flavors, attract domestic and international attention to Colombian specialty coffee, and ultimately increase the income of Colombian coffee farmers.

In Colombia, coffee is mainly grown in the Andean region of west-central Colombia. The Andean region is mainly divided into the Eastern, Central and Western Cordilleras, with an average altitude of over 3000 m, and there are also many volcanoes. Along with the high altitude and geographical environment, the entire mountain range has a diverse microclimate. These climates run through multiple coffee-producing regions in Colombia, and there is basically a harvest season throughout the year, with different types of coffee ripening one after another at different times.

Therefore, LOD is based on the two harvest seasons of Colombian coffee. One edition is held in March-April of the first half of the year, mainly evaluating coffee beans harvested from September to December of the previous year, while the next edition is held in September-October of the following year, mainly evaluating coffee beans harvested from May to August. Generally speaking, one is mainly responsible for the coffee-producing regions of the center and north, and the other is mainly responsible for the coffee-producing regions of the center and south, so the two competitions will cover all of Colombia's coffee and its flavor characteristics.

At the same time, this is also the purpose for which FNC founded LOD, because FNC believes that the COE competition is held only once a year, and during the competition some coffee-producing regions in Colombia are still in the harvest period and cannot participate in COE, thus missing many opportunities. Recently, FNC also announced that the 2024 COE competition will be postponed to the first half of 2025, and this time coffee from many coffee-producing regions that previously had no opportunity to appear will be included, which can also raise the profile of these regions and showcase Colombia's diverse coffee-producing regions.

In addition, what makes LOD special is that its awards are not a single championship bean; the competition also has small-lot and large-lot categories. This is because the civil conflict in Colombia earlier led to a large number of coffee plantations being abandoned, and later, in order to save the coffee industry, wasteland began to be consolidated and divided into small plots sold to farmers at extremely low prices, so even now Colombia remains dominated by smallholder farmers.

The large-lot category set up by the competition is mainly for coffee beans produced by some large estates, and the best estate bean (BEST ESTATE) will be selected and receive a prize of 25 million pesos. The small-lot category is mainly for coffee beans produced by some small estates or farmers, and is divided by characteristics into five major awards: best acidity (BEST ACIDITY), best body (BEST BODY), best softness (BEST SOFTNESS), best balance (BEST BALANCE), and best exotic flavor (BEST EXOTIC). These awards all go through double selection by domestic and international judges, and finally the green beans that enter the finals are chosen and auctioned.

Afterward, the FNC also announced that in March 2025 it will hold the tenth Land of Diversity LOD competition in northern Colombia, where high-quality coffees produced in regions such as northern Santander and Antioquia will appear.

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