Ethiopia Dry Process Chelchele Shitaye Abebe

Single farm lots from Ethiopia are uncommon for us, so we were pleasantly surprised to find this amazing dry process coffee from farmer Shitaye Abebe, in Gedeb. Ethiopia is mostly comprised of small-holder farmers who manage less than 1 hectare of land, and don't produce very much coffee. The tradition is to deliver their cherries to central wet mills who then bulk them together in larger regional blends, rather than separate them out as a microlot. Shitaye Abebe, on the other hand, manages a much larger coffee farm, and was able to produce these 100 bags of an incredible Grade 1 natural (aka "dry process"). His farm is located in a very high altitude part of Gedeb, called Chelchele, that peaks around 2200 meters. Like a lot of farmers in this region, Shitaye has cultivated his farm in varieties from the Jimma Agricultural Research Center ("JARC"). Specifically, he's growing JARC 74110 and JARC 74112, an heirloom that originated from the West, and was selected for high yield and disease resistance. His coffee was sold to us from a mill nearby called "Chelbesa Danche", where we've sourced some really amazing wet and dry process coffees in the past. It is part of a group of stations run by SNAP Specialty Coffee, Chelbesa being one of their most recent ventures. I'll also note that the site is certified organic, though this lot was not purchased with certification.