Green Coffee Offerings : Africa : Ethiopia


View Our Current Ethiopian Coffees
Upcoming Crop Comments

We are in a funny dry spell of dry processed Ethiopian coffees. We picked up on lot to use for some of our blends - but did not feel strongly about listing it on its own. We do have more on the way - they are "on the water" as they say in the shipping biz.


About Ethiopian Coffee

 

The Congo

Map of the Ethiopia

Coffee seedlings distributed free to farmers at a government nursery in the Hararghe region. From my 2008 trip.


Milling dry-process coffee by pounding the heck out of it! Eastern Hararghe region, 2008.

Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee: it is in the forests of the Kaffa region that coffea arabica grew wild. Coffee is "Bun" or "Buna" in Ethiopia, so Coffee Bean is quite possibly a poor anglicized interpretation of "Kaffa Bun". Coffea Arabica was also found in the Harar region quite early, either brought from the Kaffa forests or found closer by. It is entirely possible that slaves taken from the forests chewed coffee berry and spread it into the Harar region, through which the Muslim slave trade route passed.

Ethiopian coffees are available from some regions as dry-processed, from some regions as washed, and from Sidamo as both! The difference between the cup profiles of the natural dry-processed vs. the washed is profound. Washed Sidamo, Yirgacheffe and Limmu have lighter body and less earthy / wild tastes in the cup as their dry-processed kinfolk. Ethiopian coffee reminds me more and more of fresh produce, because when you find a really great coffee like the dry-processed Koratie, it is like eating Michigan peaches at the height of the season. The flavors are amazing, and when it is gone, it is gone. If all the factors line up just right, it might be the same next year, maybe not.

Ethiopian coffees can vary greatly from lot to lot. It takes A LOT of cupping to find the specific lot of coffee that is superior. MAO Horse exports a lot of coffee, but each year one specific "chop" (lot number) out-cups the others. Since lots differ in character, and I do so much to find the best lot, we are now listing the Lot Number in the description of the coffee. When I find that coffee, I buy the majority of the year's coffee immediately, leaving a small opening in case any other good lots come along later in the season. But my experience has been that early shipments of the DP Ethiopians are often the best of the season, in contradiction to many other origins where the earliest are often underdeveloped, lower-grown coffees and the mid-crop pickings are better.

Organic supplies have been good, and a few lots have been outstanding. Here's an interesting article outlining the producers' hopes for the budding Organic Ethiopian coops.

We have many pictures and notes about Ethiopia coffee in our travelogs, namely a cupping trip to Addis and an interesting trek to Dire Dawa and Harar in the east. Tom also attended the Harar Roundtable Conference, and headed south to Sidama and Yirgacheffe in February 2009. Check out the commentary and photos here. I have also been there a few times since - check out the travelogue section of our Coffee Library page.

Coffee Farms:
331,130 peasant farms
19,000 state farm coffee areas
 
Harvest Times:
Washed: August-December
Dry: October to March
Exports all year
Coffee Workers:
about 12 million
Grading,
Processing :

Grade 1= 0-3 defects
Grade 2= 4-12
Most coffee qualifies in these 2 grades, but is exported as grade 4 or 5, presumably for tax reasons (?)

Shade-Grown:
55% light shade
33% medium
17% heavy
Certified Organic:
None certified: all coffee grown organic by tradition
Major Coffee Growing Regions:

Harar,
Sidamo,
Yirgacheffe (in Sidamo),
Limmu,
Djimmah,
Lekempti,
Bebeka

Rank in Production::
2nd in Africa
7th in World
Botanical Cultivars:
Native arabica (arabica coffee is indigenous to Harar)
Introduced:
Coffee grew wild on the Harar plateau before the existence of man, and in Ethiopia that is a long, long, long time ago.

A brief word about the grading of Ethiopian Coffees: The top grade Ethiopian washed coffees (Yirgacheffe and Sidamo, usually) might bear a Grade 2 or 3, dry-processed from the Eastern parts will be 4 or 5 by nature of the preparation method. Oftentimes, a Grade 4 will be marked grade 5 to save on taxes and duties. The whole system is a bit tricky, because you can now have a Grade 1 or 2 natural from Yirga Cheffe, but not from Harar, where the top grade will be Gr. 4 . But we judge coffee by cup quality via blind cupping: not the marks of the bag. Expect uneven roast color from even the best of the dry-processed coffees. Even roast color is not necessarily a mark of high cup quality. NOTE: Some Ethiopian dry-processed coffees are hand prepped and dried in the sun - so watch out for rocks! There can be small stones and dirt clods in the coffee that you need to cull out before roasting and definitely before grinding as these can jam a grinder. A ground up dirt clod can foul an otherwise lovely pot of coffee. (In wet processed coffees the stones fall out in the water channel but in dry processed coffees, small stones can escape detection and make it all the way through to the final bag.) Expect uneven roast colors from dry-processed Ethiopian coffees. In this image of Harar, there is one bean to cull out - pretty obvious.

Our Ethiopian Coffee Offerings:

Please refer to our Reference Page for definitions of terms and cupping numbers used below. Check out the Sweet Maria's Coffee Home Roasting Forum for more conversation about home roasting Ethiopian and other coffees.



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Ethiopia Dry Process Jimma -Nigusie Lemma
$6.50$12.35$28.28$53.95$100.10
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Nigusie Lemma is a coffee producer group in the Mitto Gunim area of Limmu Kossa woreda (district) northwest of Jimma, and it is the first lot we secured through the Ethiopia Direct Specialty Trade (DST) Auction. DST is a way for smaller lots of high quality to bypass the Coffee Exchange (ECX) where all lots are made anonymous. With the DST we know where the coffee came from and who grew it. Given the importance of direct trade between coffee buyer and the grower, and the general trend of quality-conscious roasters to want a first-person relationship with their coffee sources, the ECX seems like a step backward, toward coffee as mass commodity. But in providing the DST bypass, as well as (hopefully) new mechanisms in the coming year for small buyers to deal directly with growers, coops and private groups, they have shown sensitivity to the needs of businesses like ours. It was important for us to participate, and show our support for the DST. And we were happy to find a few lots of quality. The Nigusie Lemma was our absolute favorite natural (dry-process) coffee, and I am so happy that after untold shipping delays it arrived and cups fantastic! The preparation is outstanding, the cup ... well, look at the numbers.

Aromatically, Nigusie Lemma has it "all going on", as the kids say, or used to say. The dry fragrance is exploding with fruit ...fill-the-room kind of fruit aromatics. Peach and plum are the dominant fruit notes, with mango as well. It's flamboyantly sweet, a heady, slightly winey and somewhat rustic sweetness, raw brown sugar, and even a suggestion of beef broth. The break is very sweet, fruited with plum and dry berry, as well as toasted coconut and cocoa powder roast tones. The cup is peaches, right off the bat, canned peaches in syrup. After a small temperature drop, other fruits emerge. Again, mango along with dried apricot. In a slightly darker roast I had berry, but more like a blueberry toaster waffle, well done. The mouthfeel is thin on the initial slurp, but as it passes off the palate it thickens, with a waxy slickness, an almond oil quality. The finish has Brazil nut, and the fruits turn toward a tropical fruit salad mix; pineapple, peach, guava, lychee, banana.



This coffee is part of our direct trade Farm Gate pricing transparency program.

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Dry process coffee cherries on the drying bed, before hulling.
Country: Ethiopia
Grade: 3
Region: Mitto Gunim, Limmu Kossa Woreda
Mark: DST Auction Lot, Edeto Coffee Development
Processing: Dry Process
Crop: August 2010 Arrival (GrainPro)
Appearance: .4 d/300gr, 17-18 Screen
Varietal: Heirloom Ethiopia longberry cultivar
Intensity/Prime Attribute: Bold intensity / Strong sweet fruit aromatics and flavors
Roast: City+ to Full City or Full City+. It's a great cup at most any roast.
Compare to: Special preparation dry-process Ethiopia. Of course the Idido Misty Valley comes to mind.
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Ethiopia Organic Shakiso Wet Process
$5.75$10.93$25.01$47.73$88.55
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This is a wet-process lot from Shakiso, in the Guji district of south eastern Ethiopia. Moredocofe Sole Enterprises is unique coffee producer; a private farm and coffee mill in a land of few large private farms, but also a "private cooperative" that grouped together and organized surrounding farms to help market their coffee. It is the work of Haile Gebre, his retirement project after he left the government ministry and wanted to return to the coffee area where he grew up. I tried to visit the area late last year but there are also mining concerns in the Shakiso area were having labor disputes. Mr. Gebre told us it was better to simply avoid the place for a while, so we met in Yirg Alem in Sidama to talk coffee at the famous Aregash Lodge. I find the Moredocofe washed coffees to be quite different from other wet-process Ethiopias, Sidamo or Yirga Cheffe. It is not a bright citric cup, although certainly it has a nice sparkle of acidity in the cup. And it has more body than other wet-process coffees. The dry fragrance has a beautiful lemon wafer cookie scent, with vibrant light caramel sweetness. Adding the hot water, graham cracker sweetness and a mild floral character dominates, honeysuckle and a whiff of pink jasmine flower too. The cup has a clean, clear sweetness, like a light brown sugar taste, with mild sweet citrus marmalade accent. There is some spice tea flavor as well, cinnamon-like. As it cools a beautiful mandarin orange flavor comes forward, and the mouthfeel goes from being light and unobtrusive, to something more like fruit syrup. It's a charming coffee, more restrained perhaps than other Ethiopia lots, but it certainly grows on you with each sip. I love this coffee as an aromatic and brightness component of espresso, or as SO espresso by itself.



This coffee is part of our direct trade Farm Gate pricing transparency program.

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Wet process coffee being washed into the fermentation tank, Ethiopia.
Country: Ethiopia
Grade: 2
Region: Shakiso area, Gujii, Oromia
Mark: Moredocofe Sole Enterprises
Processing: Wet Process
Crop: January 2010 Arrival GrainPro
Appearance: .2 d/300gr, 16-18 Screen
Varietal: Local Ethiopia cultivars
Intensity/Prime Attribute: Medium intensity / Clear and clean fruit, refined sweetness
Roast: City to City+ captures the qualities I describe above, the clear sweetness and fruited notes. For espresso we take it to a Full City and allow no 2nd crack to occur.
Compare to: Clean, sweet, bright flavor profile, but with body as well. Not a super citric coffee, which makes it very useful as an espresso blend aroma component.
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Ethiopia Yirga Cheffe Kochere
$5.80$11.02$25.23$48.14$89.32
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With the new ECX (Ethiopia Coffee Exchange) rules imposed now on Ethiopia coffee exports, all lots (with an exception for FTO cooperative coffees) are made anonymous when they enter the Government warehouse. Which means when we find a great coffee via importers and not direct sourcing (which is now nearly impossible in Ethiopia), we do not know exactly which cooperative or mill this lot is from. We know it is a Yirga Cheffe, a Grade 2 (which means very good preparation but can be ambiguous - see my notes on the grading system), and nobody needs to tell us it is a wet-process coffee. While making lots anonymous has been a setback for us, it doesn't mean great lots suddenly disappeared. The great coffees are still there, we just know less about them. We are sure enough this is a Kochere area lot, and it is an awesome cup.

This lot came in as a standard sample offer but jumped out on the cupping table immediately. The dry grounds have a very sweet floral-laced quality, and a unique gingerbread dough spicy-sweet scent. The wet aroma also has a unique blend of cinnamon and powdered ginger, along with caramelized sugar and a jasmine tea accent. I get some butterscotch noted from the slightly darker roast level (FC-FC+) but much of the floral scent is gone ... I really like this coffee at the lighter end of the roast range. The cup has cane sugar sweetness, and the fruit note of the coffee cherry, clean and ripe. When it has cooled completely the cup is still so sweet and dynamic, with honey and floral flavors. The body is on the light side, with a nice syrupy mouthfeel. It makes a great iced coffee too, provided you don't water it down when icing it.





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Parchment coffee resting in Yirga Cheffe before milling and export.
Country: Ethiopia
Grade: 2
Region: Kochere, Yirga Cheffe
Mark: Ambassa Exports (ECX lot)
Processing: Wet-Process
Crop: August 2010 Arrival
Appearance: .4 d/300gr, 16-18 Screen
Varietal: Local Shortberry Ethiopia types
Intensity/Prime Attribute: Medium intensity / Bright and lovely cup, sweet, spicy and floral, light body
Roast: City roast to Full City. City to City+ is the best, brightest, sweetest cup.
Compare to: Classic Yirga Cheffe wet-processed character, with the added spicy bonus
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Archived Reviews

To view reviews for out of stock coffees, visit our Ethiopia Coffee Archives.


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