Next Roast 9/1: Ethiopia Guji Hambela Dabaye

Hambela Dabaye is from longtime Guji coffee farmer and mill manager, Kedir Hassan. He is the older brother to Esmael Hassan, who you may remember as the producer of another Guji coffee we've also carried, Kayon Mountain. "Dabaye" is the name of the kebele where this Hambela station is located (a town, more or less). We were lucky enough to be hosted at this station on our December 2018 visit, camping out in a pair of military tents replete with cots, overlooking the couple hundred drying tables below us. Kedir is an incredibly proficient and capable engineer as well as coffee farmer, and built the entire Hambela station in one season. You wouldn't know this, as it's visually apparent everything was built with high processing standards, and with efficiency in mind. Of course he did not complete Hambela on his own, and thanks to his long standing connection with the the people in this area, he had much needed community support. Hambela sits at 1816 meters above sea level, and coffee is grown as high as 2100 meters. They mostly buy coffee from farmers in the surrounding kebeles of Buliye, Wamena, Borticha, Dari Rogicha and Dabaye, of course. The mill is also certified organic, though we did not buy this lot with a certificate.