The Coffees of Ethiopia

Africa: 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.

Current Crop Comments:

2008 has been a fantastic year for Dry-Process coffees, and there are a few stand-out Wet-Process lots too (but more difficult to find. Koratie of both types has been great, early Harars were good, and Dale Yirga Alem was excellent too. Idido Misty Valley is due late in the season. 2007 had lot of very poor DP samples coming, while the wet-process coffees were excellent. With a great Harar I am looking for fruited notes ranging between blueberry and apricot, brightness, and not too much rustic character that would distract from the fruits. Usually, early new crop Harar and Yirgacheffe are not the best. Nonetheless I cup them all, and I cup a lot of Ethiopian lots to find the ones we offer. This origin is very important to me!

Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee: it is in the forests of the Kaffa region that coffee 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 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 imports 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.

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.

Ethiopia Kembata Grade 4 Dry-Process

Country:

Ethiopia

Grade:

Region:

Sidamo

Mark:

Schluter

Processing:

Dry-processed

Crop:

October 2008 Arrival

Appearance:

2 d/300gr, 17-18 Screen

Varietal:

Heirloom Ethiopia cultivar

Notes:Kembata a zone referred to as KAT (Kembata Alaba and Tembaro) and is in the attractively-named state of Ethiopian Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples Region (SNNPR) in South Ethiopia. Now that we have all the acronyms out of the way, Kembata coffees have been sold as Sidamo dry-process, which is marginally correct, and the name is related to the Kambaata people and language of the area. There are three main centers in the area, the towns of Durame, Alaba Kulito and Shinshicho, and the general range of altitudes is 1700 - 2200 meters, perfect for coffee. Local landmarks include the three mountains of Ambaricho, Kataa, and Datoo, and the hot springs at Motokoma. The coffee is "garden-grown" on small plots, as the cash crop, alongside sustenance crops like beans and corn. There's a mix of longberry and shortberry heirloom Ethiopia varietals used. What impressed me about this coffee was the clean character, and uniformity from cup-to-cup. All Ethiopian dry-processed coffees are going to have variability. It's just part of the sun-dried coffee process where whole cherry is sun-dried, then the whole husk and parchment is removed in one step, and all defective coffee seeds are removed by visual sorting. That means a few decent-looking seeds will make it through the process that are indeed a bit over-ripe or under-ripe. After you roast you can cull out any really, really light-colored seeds after roasting, but don't be too overzealous. Back to the cup: the dry fragrance has a lemon-blossom sweetness, caramel and hazelnut roast tone at City+ level. Add water, and the wet aromatics have dried peach fruit scents, tamarind, and lemon rind. The rindy citrus quality comes through in the cup, as well as intense, honey-sweetened lemonade. There's a blend of spice, canela (Mexican cinnamon stick) predominates. There's a little honeydew melon, and a winey accent to the fruit in the long aftertaste. There is Brazil nut roast tone, as well as drying cocoa powder finish. As it cools, the chocolate shifts, and the aftertaste is more intense, like baker's chocolate.

Intensity/Prime Attribute:Medium-Bold intensity / Rustic, spiced, fruited

Roast:Full City to FC + roast is best: I like a more developed roast taste and a dense, almost creamy body.

Compare to: A rustic and raw dry-processed coffee, not for those who want cleanliness and uniformity in their roasting and tasting.

Ethiopia Organic DP Bonko "Black Sun"

Country:

Ethiopia

Grade:

Region:

Bonko, Dara Woreda, SNNP-Sidamo

Mark:

Bonko farmer's group, ABO Black Sun mark

Processing:

Dry-Processed

Crop:

December 2008 Arrival

Appearance:

1.4 d/300gr, 16-18 Screen

Varietal:

Longberry and shortberry Ethiopia cultivars

Notes:Bonko is a 300 member cooperative of small farmers, averaging about 1 Hecatare each. It's in the Sidamo region, Dara subdistrict. This is a special lot we selected, hence the Black Sun designation from the export mark. It's a natural coffee, another way of saying dry-process. This means whole ripe coffee cherries are picked from the tree and laid out to dry on raised screens (sometimes called African Bed drying). This is a great method for dry-process coffees since fermented flavors emerge if the fruit takes too long to dry, and a raised bed means that convective air currents dry the coffee from above and below. Good drying is really evident in the cup here, as well as the fact that only red-ripe cherry went into the lot. This was part of a program called "Operation Cherry Red" designated to pay higher prices to the farmer coops for better-quality harvesting. This shows in the quality of the roast and the clean sweetness of the cup. Ripe fruit and rustic sweet syrup dominate the dry fragrance. There is ample strawberry and "apricot preserves" in the sweetness too. The cup has the same jammy flavors, strawberry, stone fruits - apricot, peach and plum. It has a hazelnut roast tone behind the fruited notes at City+ roast, and mild milk chocolate begins to show itself at Full City. It's a rare natural Ethiopia that can take a lighter roast and not have some sort of odd cup flavor emerge. Again, it's a testament to the fact that this lot is well-picked and well-prepared at the mill. If you can keep this to a City or City+ roast, you will be rewarded with a fantastic cup!

Intensity/Prime Attribute:Medium-Bold intensity / Super sweet, jammy fruit at the lighter roast levels.

Roast:City to City+ is ideal, lighter that is recommended for most Ethiopia natural coffees.

Compare to: Elevated ripe fruit flavors, syrupy sweet. This coffee is part of our direct trade Farm Gate pricing transparency program.

Ethiopia Organic DP Idido Misty Valley

Country:

Ethiopia

Grade:

Region:

Idido, Gedeo Zone Yirga Cheffe

Mark:

Idido town, "Misty Valley" mark

Processing:

Screen Dry-Processed

Crop:

November 2008 Arrival

Appearance:

.2 d/300gr, 16-18 Screen

Varietal:

Longberry and shortberry Ethiopia cultivars

Notes:Idido Misty Valley is the first true high-quality Dry-processed (DP) Yirga Cheffe coffee I ever experienced, carefully prepared, loaded with strawberry and marmalade fruit notes to an almost intoxicating degree. Maybe I can chalk it up to new experiences, but that first year we found Idido Misty Valley (IMV) and offered it at Sweet Maria's, it was unparalelled. Idido is a town in the Gedeo area of Yirga Cheffe. As you know, the tradition in Yirga Cheffe is wet-processing, whereas Harar has a dry-processing tradition. Wet-processing is the method used in Central America and the like, resulting in a green seed with a cleaner cup profile, and less earthy or rustic cup flavors. Dry-processing involves drying the entire coffee cherry in the sun, and later removing the skin, fruity mucilage layer and protective parchment shell that surrounds the green seed ... all in one fell swoop. Excellent dry-processed coffees are difficult to achieve. The milling method for wet-processing allows for separation of ripe and unripe coffee cherry (and other defective seeds) using water and machines. But in dry-processing, sorting out under-ripes is done visually, either by sorting the ripe cherry, or later, sorting the "green" bean. (You probably know from experience with Harar and the like that the dry-processed green bean is in fact yellow, partly because it has more of the silverskin, the chaff, still attached to it). The problem in Ethiopia is this: traditional dry-processed coffee is NOT pre-sorted to include only ripe red coffee cherry and it is sun-dried in a rather haphazard fashion. IMV has changed that. The difference with this lot is night and day; IMV originates with ripe cherry, is uniformaly screen-dried in the sun, and has been dry-milled using the same screen and density-sorting techniques as wet-processed lots. And the result is amazing: it is both a traditional "moka" type coffee flavor (chocolate and fruit) with Yirga Cheffe accents (floral, citrus) and no distracting, overly-earthy notes. Given that, the darker roasts (FC+, Vienna) are surprisingly pungent, with a intense tobacco aromatic, dark chocolate roast taste, and tannic grape skin notes in the background. But it is the City+ roast where the cup has intense sweetness, and liveliness. The dry fragrance is honeyed, with strawberry and cherry fruit notes, and vanilla. Add water and the sweetness becomes sharper, and sweet mango fruit aromas emerge, with floral and citric hints. Cup flavors are like fruit candy, like marmalade, apricot preserves, and strawberry. There are tropical fruits, and sweet orange, and citrus flowers. Unlike light roasts of other dry-processed Ethiopias, there is a noticeable refinement and clarity to the finish of the Idido Misty Valley cup.

Intensity/Prime Attribute:Medium-Bold intensity / Clean, bright, floral and fruited cup

Roast:City+ is where you will experience the most here. FC to FC+ develops more chocolate notes, and heavier body, with some loss of the beautiful strawberry flavors.

Compare to: A fantastic dry-processed Ethiopia with remarkable clarity in the cup flavors. Note that this is the true and original IMV, since many other exporters are now offering DP Yirga Cheffe, some good, many not. Menno's Misty Valley was the most comparable to true IMV.

Ethiopia Organic Wet-Process Kebado

Country:

Ethiopia

Grade:

Region:

Kebado, Sidamo

Mark:

Kebado, Almaz Zeleke, Vac-Packed

Processing:

Wet-processed

Crop:

November 2008 Arrival

Appearance:

.2 d/300gr, 17-18 Screen

Varietal:

Heirloom Ethiopia cultivars

Notes:Kebado is a very small town off the main road to Dilla coming from Awassa in the Sidamo area. It is accessed by a dirt road which travels 2.9 kilometers up a mountain called Metesio. A back road connects Kebado with Teferikela and Aleta Wondo. But is impassible much of the year. From this humble rural setting comes one of the most nuanced, exciting Ethiopia coffees. This was a special lot we found that was vacuum packaged In Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to preserve cup quality. The results are fantastic. The fragrance from the dry coffee grounds have layers of fruit, ripe plum and passion fruit. There's a confectionairy quality to the wet aroma, pastry and candy-like, with the light City roast being more citrusy and effervescent, and the FC roast having more berry-like tones. I would be remiss if I didn't add that this coffee is so floral, from start to finish. In the cup ... wow ... the lightest roasts are incredibly lively. If you like lighter roasts, if you like dynamic, bright flavor profiles, then Kebado is it. It's the kind of coffee that can win competitions. The acidity is so well-defined, so articulate and fine, with lemony brightness and a bit of lime as an aftereffect. The body is very light, yet comes off refined and velvety. At these very light roasts, the balance between a momentary, initial sour to sweet, perfectly ripe fruit is thrilling. There are white grape flavors embedded in the complex of fruit notes, as well as starfruit, pear and Gala apple. The aftertaste in City roast is not grainy, as some light roasts can be, but has green tea tightness, offset by sweet fading fruit. At Full City roast, the cup doesn't have the same skyscraping high notes, but has excellent Flame grape and plum flavors. It's a joy to cup this coffee. This is the first vacuum-packed Ethiopia we have offered. (BTW, that means we receive it in vacuum bags, then we pack it and ship it in our normal zip bags.

Intensity/Prime Attribute:Medium intensity / Floral and citric sweetness

Roast:City to City+ roast - see my notes about the roast above.

Compare to: A syrupy Yirga Cheffe with remarkable clarity in the cup flavors, that is best with a very light roast. This coffee is part of our direct trade Farm Gate pricing transparency program.