Shakisso Farm

Farm

Shakisso

Region:
Guji ,Ethiopia 

Varieties: Mixed Heirloom
Altitude: 1800 m
Certifications: Organic, Rainforest Alliance
Processes: Washed, Naturalv

Common cupping notes:

Floral ,Blue Berries ,Vanilla 

Producer:

Haile Gebre

Haile’s story

Coffee is Haile’s enemy and his friend. At the age of 10, Haile Gebre and his family flee their home near Yirgacheffe because feudal lords claim the land to produce coffee on a large scale. Although he is a son of a coffee smallholder, he feels betrayed by the bean. It took years for Haile to turn his childhood enemy into a dear friend.


After a fleeting three month stay at the University of Addis Ababa in his twenties, Haile joins the navy in 1972. His superiors find Haile to be a smart and cunning recruit, so they assign him to the engineering and navigation division. But for Haile, this role comes without challenge, so he returns to the University.

Ye Genet

Farm

Ye Genet

Region:
Ye Genet, Ethiopia

Washing station:
Ye Genet

Varieties:Mixed Heirloom
Altitude:1950 – 2250 m
Processes: Natural
Certifications: Non-Certified

Common cupping notes:

Lemon ,Rose hips ,Orange

About Tsegaye Hagos

Tsegaye Hagos was born in the Atsbi Wonberta woreda, between the famous rock-hewn churches of Tigray. Tigray, one of Ethiopia’s nine states, is found in the North dry and scorched lands that border Eritrea. The majority of Tigrayans are Orthodox Christian and have built their lives around religious concepts, like strict fasting, for instance. Tsegaye still considers these Northern areas as home.

Tsegaye, born in 1959, loses his parents at a young age. His older brothers and sisters take care of Tsegaye. Together, they practically raise him. Coffee has an important role in Tsegaye’s early life. The young Tigrayen even thinks about working in coffee; although the North is not suitable for quality coffee. At age 18, Tsegaye immigrates to Sudan because the political situation in Ethiopia is unstable. Like many youths in that time, he flees to a neighboring country and searches for a better future.

After 15 years in Sudan, Tsegaye returns to his birth grounds. He is involved in the import business of vehicles from the U.A.E. But the love for coffee never strays far from his mind. In 1996, a group of people start a joint venture that supplies the local market with coffee. Tsegaye joins the venture and starts his coffee career; a dream come true. However, Tsegaye is ambitious and interested in starting his own coffee company. After visiting Guji, he considers striking down in the Kercha District, Guji zone. Kercha is an area that borders Gedeo’s fruitful woreda ‘Gedeb’. Just 10 years after joining the venture, Tsgaye opens his own washing station in Kercha; Sasaba. The work at Sasaba proves to be intensive and Tsegaye is in dire need of assistance. Tsegaye’s fellow Tigrayen and childhood friend Mulu Gebreyohannes joins Sasaba as the Operation Manager.


The two make Sasaba a phenomenon in Guji. The success of Sasaba paves the road for a new washing station; Ye Genet.

Suke Quto

Farm

Suke Quto

Region:
Guji, Ethiopia

Washing station:
Suke Quto

Varieties: Kurume, Welicho
Altitude:1800 – 2200 m
Processes:Washed, Natural, Pulped Natural
Certifications: Organic, Rainforest Alliance

Common cupping notes:

Floral ,Lemon ,Peach

Producer:
Tesfaye Bekele

Tesfaye’s story

Ato Tesfaye Bekele is one of the people that put Guji specialty coffee on the map. While the Guji zone was dominated by cattle farmers, he sought new ways to make coffee popular in Guji. “I don’t consider myself to be a coffee farmer, because coffee is everything to me. All my time and energy are placed into the beans that I harvest and process.” Tesfaye Bekele, the founder of Suke Quto Farm, explains.


“I come from a coffee-producing family, so during my childhood, I started to work with coffee early on”, Tesfaye continues, “At first, coffee did not have my interest. The labor was hard, and the days were long. But after several years of study and other work I returned to my home in the Shakisso woreda, Guji. I found myself in coffee again”.

Suke Quto Washing Station

At the Suke Quto Washing Station, the washed coffees are pulped with an Agared machine. This is a pulper that has no mucilage remover. The coffee beans are fermented for about 35- 48 hours (depending on the current weather) in fermentation tanks. There are three lagoons to store the wastewater. Suke’s natural coffees are dried between 9 and 15 days on elevated beds.


Tesfaye focusses on environmentally friendly coffee and on the economic growth of the community. In other words, people should get a living income from sustainable coffee production. Tesfaye also initiated a community project that aims to renew local schools. With a handful of dedicated coffee roasters, Tesfaye has built a new school building in the neighboring village Kurume.


Together with Haile Gebre, from Shakisso Farm, Tesfaye is one of the innovative forces that shaped the success of Guji coffee.

Aricha

Farm

Aricha

Region:
Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia

Washing station:
Aricha

Varieties:Kurume ,Mixed Heirloom
Altitude:1950 – 2150 m
Processes: Washed
Cupping: 87

Common cupping notes:

Floral ,Lemon ,Tangerine

Producer:

Faysel A. Yonis

The Aricha, Reko, Gersi, and Naga Singage 

There are many intricate details that make everything about coffee fascinating. Each detail is connected to another, forming an intriguing chain that affects the flavor of the bean in diverse ways. One of these details is altitude. As altitude increases, so does the time needed for the cherries to develop and ripen, and therefore, harvest time moves forward as you climb.


This is one of the reasons why the people at the Aricha washing station (Yirgacheffe, Ethiopia) process coffee from its surrounding communities as separate lots. For example, Gersi’s coffee comes in later in the harvest season.

Ayla Bensa

Farm

Ayla Bensa

Region:
Sidamo, Ethiopia

Washing station:
Ayla Bensa

Varieties: Mixed Heirloom
Altitude:1950 – 2000 m.
Processes: Natural, Washed

Common cupping notes:

Orange ,Florals ,Winey

Bombe coffee and taste profile

Bombe is a high-altitude location in the Bombe mountains of Bensa district, Sidama (around 2000 m.a.s.l). This altitude plays a key role in why the Bombe coffee is so special. Very high altitudes make things difficult for the coffee tree. The colder climate slows the growth cycle, and development takes longer. Coffee harvests from higher altitudes are typically later than those at lower altitudes, even in the same vicinity. In addition, higher altitudes tend to have better water drainage, so that reduces the amount of water freely available to the coffee tree.


The result is a slowly matured cherry that is small, dense, and packed with flavor. Lastly, coffee in Bombe tends to ripen uniformly. This makes picking the cherries a simpler process because they are all perfectly ripe for picking at the same time. Together, these many factors combine to produce Bombe’s delightful flavor packed with citrusy and floral notes.

Processing at Ayla Bensa

As opposed to the high-altitude farms, Bombe coffee is processed lower down at the Ayla Bensa washing station. The washing station maintains a buying station, so farmers do not need to travel far to sell their cherries to the Ayla Bensa team. 

Once at the Ayla Bensa washing station, Bombe coffee is processed as a separate lot, kept apart from other coffees to preserve its unique flavor. The washing process starts with removing the pulp, a couple of days of fermentation in water, followed by a manual rinse, and finishes with the coffee beans drying on raised beds until the moisture content reaches desired levels.

Dimtu Tero

Farm

Dimtu Tero

Region:
Guji, Ethiopia

Varieties: Mixed Heirloom
Altitude:1808 – 2128 m 
Processes: Natural, Washed
Certifications: Organic

Common cupping notes:

Chocolate ,Cherry ,Vanilla

Producer:

Getachew Zekele

The Story of Dimtu Tero Farm


When traveling from Addis to the Dimtu Tero Farm, it takes you 1,5 days to get there. If you cross Yirgacheffe, you find the rolling hills and plains of Guji. An entirely different landscape compared to Yirgacheffe. Slightly better roads slide over hilly grassy plains suited for livestock. Although coffee takes a central part in Guji culture, it took years before the Guji people started to use coffee as a cash crop.

But in the early 2000s, the founding fathers of Guji’s rich coffee culture, Haile and Tesfaye, started to farm coffee. The young Getachew Zekele lived through the transformation and, when growing up, became part of it. Although choosing a career in coffee, Getachew grew up in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. The Zekele family moved to the South because of career opportunities for Getachew’s father. A decision that would pave the way for Getachew’s work in coffee.

Getachew remembers how his parents introduced him to a coffee-loving community. “Coffee is a respected crop in the area where I came to live. The community uses coffee as food in rituals and ceremonies, and it is also used as an instrument to bless traditional leaders, Abba Gadaa.”, Getachew explains.

Dimtu Tero Farm

Dimtu Tero, otherwise known as Dimtu Plantation, is a 151-hectare semi-forest farm. You won’t notice where the farm begins or ends, because the farm is one with the forests of Guji. Getachew makes efforts to keep nature untouched. His organic coffee production gave the farm its NOP, EU, and JAS certifications. A unique feature for Ethiopian coffee farms. While taking a tour through the farm, Getachew will proudly show the 74110 and 74112 varieties. The Jimma Agricultural Research Center developed these disease-resistant cultivars in 1974.

Testi Adorsi

Farm

Testi Adorsi

Region:
Yiracheffe-1
Procesing station:
Aricha,Testi Adorsi

Varieties: Heirloom
Altitude: 1950-2150m
Processes: Natural
Cupping: 88

Common cupping notes:
Long complex aftertaste, tat citric, slick mouthfeel, high sweetness, cacao, walnut, hornbeam, violet, strawberry finish.

Grown at an altitude between 1950-2150 metres above sea level, this lot is comprised of Ethiopian heirloom varietals including the local Karume varietal. The cooperatively grown lot is sourced from a large number of family owned garden plots and the regions soil is nitrogen rich and volcanic.

This lot has been processed at the Testi owned Adorsi washing station and is comprised of cherries delivered by over 900 smallholder farmers.

This coffee has been fully washed processed, with a total duration of wet fermentation between 24-36 hours before soaking in clean water for and additional 12-24 hours. The drying was undertaken using raised beds over the following 10-12 days.

You can expect to find notes of tropical fruit, guava and sweet lemon, with an excellent floral and clean finish. Expect a clean but distinct profile from this exceptional coffee with a distinct melon like sweetness.