About this Coffee
Grown in the well-known Yirgacheffe region of Ethiopia, this coffee comes from a collection of smallholder producers in the microregion of Chelbesa and processed at the Gargari Washing Station.
Coffee is a family crop – grown by households within small gardens, on less than one hectare of land. Producers line their homes with coffee trees, and it is the primary source of income. It is common for producers to intercrop enset, the Ethiopian banana, avocados, and papaya to have additional food sources
This coffee is naturally processed, meaning that after the smallholder producers deliver the cherries to the Gargari Washing Station, they are sorted for quality. The cherries are then dried on raised beds in the open sun until the ideal moisture content is reached.
Varieties of coffee grown here are traditionally referred to as ‘heirloom’ by exporters – a catchall terminology which often masks the wide assortment of varieties that may be present within various regions…even, within farms. Many of these varieties will have been developed by Ethiopia’s Jimma Agricultural Research Centre (JARC), which, since the late 1960s, has worked to develop resistant and tasty varieties for the Ethiopian coffee industry and also to provide the agricultural extension training needed to cultivate them.