In Côte d’Ivoire, learning to taste is learning to compete

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Côte d'Ivoire produces more robusta coffee than almost any country on earth. What it needed was more people who could taste it and tell the world exactly what it is worth.

Denis Seudieu, Chief Economist the International Coffee Organization, put it simply: a seller who cannot taste their own coffee cannot accurately estimate its price. It is a straightforward observation that captures precisely why, for a week in July, 20 coffee specialists gathered at the National Agronomic Research Centre (Centre National de Recherche Agronomique – CNRA) cupping laboratory in Bingerville, Côte d'Ivoire. There they held one of the most rigorous training experiences the Ivorian coffee sector has ever seen.

Côte d'Ivoire is the world's sixth-largest robusta producer. It has scale, but what it has been building more slowly is the local expertise to position that coffee not just by volume, but by quality: to speak the language of international specialty buyers, command premium prices, and capture more of the value that its coffee deserves. This training was designed to accelerate that shift.

Over six intensive days, the 20 trainees, selected for their expertise across research, quality control, and the coffee value chain, worked through the internationally recognized Coffee Quality Institute (CQI) Q Grader curriculum under the guidance of Rwandese trainer Grace Mukayisenga. The programme moved from the anatomy of taste and green coffee defect analysis through to standardized cupping protocols, triangulation tests, olfactory blind tests, and green coffee grading. It was, by any measure, demanding.

‘It was an enriching week,’ said Adiko Evelyne, a conservation and agricultural products researcher at the CNRA. ‘The experience allowed us to visually inspect many green coffee imperfections we had previously only encountered in theory. I can now precisely identify floaters, quakers, and sour beans. Thanks to ITC, the CNRA has an array of researchers equipped to conduct professional tastings, and even teach others the joy of coffee cupping.’

The training was supported by ITC through the ACP Business-Friendly programme, jointly funded by the European Union (EU) and the Organisation of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OACPS), in partnership with CNRA, the Conseil Café-Cacao, the Robusta Coffee Agency of Africa and Madagascar ACRAM, and the Association of Coffee Promoters (ASPROCAF).

Alongside the human investment, the CNRA cupping laboratory was upgraded with precision equipment like sample roasters and sensory kits to align with international accreditation standards, creating infrastructure that will outlast the training itself.

For the International Trade Centre (ITC), the initiative reflects a broader ambition in Côte d'Ivoire: to shift the sector's centre of gravity from raw commodity export toward quality-driven value addition, with local expertise at its core. Twenty new Q Graders may not transform a national coffee sector overnight, but they are the people who will train the next cohort, set the standards, and make the argument that Ivorian robusta belongs in a different conversation.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of International Trade Centre.