The top coffee at Rwanda's national specialty auction sold for US$452 a kilogram on 21 October 2026, about Rwf670,000, a price The New Times reported on 22 October as a record high. The online sale was the auction for Best of Rwanda 2026, the national specialty coffee competition run by the National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB).
Converted from the price The New Times reported, that is roughly US$205 a pound (our arithmetic). It is also a little over five times the US$88 a kilogram that NAEB said winning coffees fetched at the 2025 edition.
How were the coffees chosen?
NAEB said 320 samples were submitted from across the country for this year's competition, the third edition, in a release by Jean Claude Niyonsaba, the board's communication specialist, published on NAEB's website ahead of the sale. National cuppers scored the samples under an international head judge, and the top-ranked coffees went on to a national jury, according to the release.
The release named two category winners. An anaerobic natural from K-Organics in Huye District placed first in the special process category with 90.74 points, and Great Coffee Farmers Ltd's Cyeza washing station in Muhanga District topped the fully washed category with 89.74. Neither score has been reported alongside the auction price, and no report read for this story said which lot sold for US$452.
- Top price: US$452 per kg, about Rwf670,000, 21 October 2026 (The New Times, 22 October 2026)
- Samples submitted: 320 (NAEB release, 2026)
- Coffees selected: 25 (NAEB release, before the sale); lots sold: 31 (Pure Africa News, 22 October 2026)
- Earlier winners: US$71.8 per kg in 2024 and US$88 per kg in 2025 (NAEB release)
How many lots sold, and to whom?
The reports do not agree on the count. NAEB's pre-auction release said 25 coffees were selected from the 320 samples. Pure Africa News reported on 22 October 2026 that NAEB put the number sold at 31 lots, chosen from 320 after three rounds of tasting by national and international judges. Neither source explains the difference.
Pure Africa News reported that buyers came from Europe, Asia, the United States and Africa. It did not name the buyer of the top lot, and neither outlet reported a total value for the sale or an average price per lot.
The same report quoted Claude Bizimana, NAEB's chief executive, saying the US$452 price "reflects our continued efforts to strengthen quality and traceability" in the coffee chain. Pure Africa News also reported that NAEB described the top price as 66 times the average international price of Rwanda's coffee exports; the report did not give the average it used.
What is the government aiming for?
NAEB's release quoted Telesphore Ndabamenye, Rwanda's Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, saying the government intends "to double our average export price." The release gave no target figure or date.
The sale follows the September announcement of five new climate-resilient varieties for Rwandan farms, covered in our report on Rwanda's new coffee varieties. A Brazilian Geisha lot sold for US$200 a pound at the ACE Legends auction in Tokyo on 16 October, the Brazil Specialty Coffee Association reported, as covered in our report on that sale; the two auctions use different formats. How competition scores work is explained in our explainer on cupping scores.
Photograph: René Porter, Unsplash. Cups set out for a coffee cupping, not taken at the Best of Rwanda competition.
This report is built on reporting by The New Times and Pure Africa News and on NAEB's own release. Quotations are as published in those reports.
