Origin record
Costa Rica
Where the 2026 auction average rose 48% in a year - and where the best-known grade mark measures altitude rather than quality.
Commonly got wrong
SHB is routinely sold as a quality grade. It is an altitude class. A low-scoring coffee grown high is still SHB.
Costa Rica in 2026 is the clearest available illustration of how far a competition auction sits from every other price in coffee.
The 2026 auction, in full
The nineteenth Cup of Excellence produced a top lot at $200.10 per pound: a washed Java from Finca Rio Blanco in Copey de Dota, grown at roughly 1,950 metres and scored 91.36 by the competition jury. The lot was split into two portions of 264.55 pounds each and the same buyer paid the same price for both, which is worth noting on its own – one coffee, one score, two price rows.
Across all thirty winning lots the average was $45.53 per pound, on gross sales of $797,967.63. That average was up nearly 48 per cent on the $30.77 of 2025, while total sales rose about 14 per cent. The top lot more than doubled the previous year’s $91.00 – and still did not reach the national record of $300.09.
Set those beside a C market of about $3.08 per pound and the shape of the problem is visible without further comment.
SHB is an altitude, not a verdict
Strictly Hard Bean and Hard Bean are density classes derived from growing altitude. Higher, colder farms produce denser beans, and the mark records that. It does not record how the coffee cups. A poor coffee grown at 1,600 metres is still SHB, and a great one grown at 1,100 metres is not.
Honey is a family, not a process
White, yellow, red and black honey describe how much mucilage was left on the bean and how long it dried. They are points on a continuum rather than four defined methods, and the naming is not standardised between mills.
Qualifications on the record
- What the price actually refers to
- The 2026 Cup of Excellence auction produced a top lot at $200.10 per pound and an average across all thirty winning lots of $45.53, on gross sales of $797,967.63. The average was up about 48% on 2025 ($30.77) and the top lot more than doubled the 2025 high of $91.00. The country record for a single lot remains higher still, at $300.09.
- How the grades nest
- The Strictly Hard Bean and Hard Bean marks are ALTITUDE classes, not cup-quality classes. They describe where the coffee grew and therefore how dense the bean is. They do not certify how it tastes.
- Harvest qualification
- Los Santos and the higher Tarrazu farms run later than the lower valleys.
- Competition editions
- One edition per year; the 2026 competition was the 19th.
- Typical cup
- Clean, sweet and structured, with the honey processes adding body without the ferment character of a natural.