Two Medals at the 2026 Global Coffee Awards
STUART, FLORIDA — September 10, 2026. Two of our coffees were recognized at the Global Coffee Awards — US & Canada 2026, judged on August 10 and 11 in Houston by an independent panel evaluating coffees from invited roasteries across the United States and Canada.
| Award | Category | Coffee | Roasted by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Silver | Filter — Co-fermented | Sebastian Ramirez — Watermelon | Scott |
| Honorable Mention | Filter — Honey | Luna Azul | Mike |
Judging follows a strict double-blind protocol. No identifying information reaches anyone involved in preparing, serving, or evaluating the coffees, and samples are assessed without any knowledge of the roaster's market or style. Only one Gold, Silver, Bronze, Honorable Mention, and Finalist is awarded per subcategory.
How these actually got entered
We should be honest about this, because it is the best part.
The Silver-winning Watermelon was roasted by Scott, our production roaster, on an ordinary production day. We pulled a bag off the retail shelf — the same bag anyone walking into the café would have picked up that week — and mailed it to Houston. No competition roast. No pre-screening. No separate profile developed over months for a panel.
The Luna Azul was the opposite. Mike roasted that one himself, a small batch, deliberately, knowing exactly where it was going.
Scott's shelf bag placed higher.
We are happy to put that in print, because it is the whole argument for how this place runs. The coffee does not get better because somebody is trying harder on the day. It is the same coffee whoever is standing at the roaster.
This was never a sales push. We wanted to know how our ordinary production coffee measured up against a blind panel judging the best on the continent. Now we know.
Silver — Sebastian Ramirez, Watermelon Anaerobic Co-Ferment
A limited experimental micro-lot from producer Sebastian Ramirez in El Placer, Quindío, Colombia. Hand-picked Castillo cherries undergo a 120-hour anaerobic fermentation with CO₂, then co-ferment for another 72 hours with dehydrated watermelon and fruit glucose before patio drying.
The panel singled out its sweetness and acidity as the cup's favourite qualities, framed by watermelon, cucumber, and creamy raw sugar — describing it as a fresh and unusual profile. They also wanted more roast development and body, which is fair, and which Scott already knows.
Sebastian is a fourth-generation coffee farmer and a specialist in carbonic maceration and varietal innovation. He also mentors in the Unblended Young Producer Program. If you want to understand what a co-ferment actually is, we wrote about it in exotic coffee processing methods.
Honorable Mention — Luna Azul
This lot came off Villa Lucía in Santa Bárbara, Antioquia — the family farm up the road that Andrés Cardona was farming before he struck out on his own. It is a black honey: a week of fermentation in cherry in open tanks, depulped without water to keep the mucilage on the bean, then dried on raised beds for one to three weeks.
The judges noted grapes, raisins, blueberries, and caramel with a tartaric acidity, and enjoyed the cup's Pinot noir and dark chocolate complexity — calling it a bold and characterful coffee. They also found the fermentation read very intensely. Noted.
Andrés is the same producer behind Primer Paso, the hectare we now grow ourselves. He left Villa Lucía for a smaller farm of his own so he could focus on processing, and needing a mechanical dryer for that move is what led to the trade that gave us our hectare. Curious what "honey process" means? We covered it in washed, natural, and honey processing.
What this means to us
Both coffees are Colombian. Both came to us through relationships with producers rather than a broker's list. We are a small shop in Stuart that roasts in small batches and sells records at the same counter. Placing twice in a field like that is not something we take lightly.
Credit where it belongs: these are Sebastian's and Andrés's coffees, and Scott's roast. Our job was to not get in the way of any of them.
What's next
Both we and the producers behind these coffees are invited to the Global Coffee Awards Ceremony at the Producer Roaster Forum in Chiapas, Mexico, on March 18, 2027.
The Global Coffee Awards are supported by MTPAK Coffee as exclusive gold sponsor, with Bluewater as official water sponsor and Harris Woolf Almond Milk 2.0 as official plant-based milk sponsor.
Availability: There is very little Watermelon left, so we have taken it off the website for now — with this few bags we would rather not sell one online that has already walked out the door on the shelf. What remains is in the café in Stuart until it is gone, and it will be out of stock for a while after that.
Luna Azul is a different story. Andrés has since moved to his own farm, Finca La Ilusión, and this October we take every lot off all eight hectares of it — his largest harvest ever, already picked. That includes a new Luna Azul, now growing alongside our own Primer Paso hectare. Pre-orders are open, shipping early November.
The Roasted Record is a small-batch coffee roaster, coffee shop, and record store in Stuart, Florida. Press inquiries: mike@theroastedrecord.com.
