The Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority in partnership with United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Feed the Future Ethiopia Value Chain (FTFE-VCA) announced that the Cup of Excellence (COE) will be held in Ethiopia for the first time in March 2020. The COE will highlight Ethiopian coffee and stimulate new market opportunities for smallholder producers in the country. 
The COE is a competition to find the highest quality coffee in any given country. Each year, thousands of coffees are submitted for consideration, with winning coffees sold in global online auctions at premium prices, with the vast majority of auction proceeds go towards farmers.
All of the COE award winners are cupped at least five times (the top ten are cupped again) during the three-week competition. Hundreds of cups are smelled, tasted and judged based on its characteristics.
The COE has been discovering coffees, rewarding growers, and creating markets for these coffees since 1999.
