Ethiopia - Banko Chelchele Chelbesa Natural

After years of studying and working in the UK and the US, 2018 saw Michael Tseyahe co-found EDN Ethiopia Coffee, a coffee-producing and exporting company with five processing sites, also known as washing stations, in Ethiopia. They started the company with a noble sense of responsibility to contribute to nation-building by directly participating in advancing the country’s agricultural agenda, being its predominant source of both national income and pride.

In so doing, EDN is among the enablers of bettering coffee-growing families’ welfare while helping introduce improvements and innovations to traditional know-how, thereby supporting efforts to perpetuate the country’s intangible heritage in coffee.

Quality-focused and customer-oriented, the company has invested in nurturing its ties with peer producers and the smallholder farmers within their scope, skill-building within their teams, as well as building out the appropriate infrastructure to meet the requirements of its global customers. As such, they have been gaining renown for their professionalism and reliability as a provider of higher-end specialty coffees in small and difficult-to-acquire batches amid an increasingly challenging milieu.

Washed, natural, honey, and anaerobic post-harvest processing methods are implemented across EDN’s processing sites located in two of only three eminent coffee-growing administrative regions recognized at the Ethiopian Cup of Excellence from 2021 to 2022, both in the south. First is SNNPR (i.e. the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region), where the neighboring Yirgacheffe and Gedeb districts within the Gedeo zone are located. Second is the Oromia Region, where the Hambela district within the Guji zone is.

It is the Yirgacheffe Gedeb Processing Site that receives and processes the coffee cherries encapsulating the most desirable characteristics of the Gedeo highlands’ paramount terroir, situated at 1,950 to 2,300 masl, and which are cultivated and harvested by smallholder farmers from the Banko Gotiti Village — most of whom are still in the process of recovering their livelihoods and restoring their households after being displaced by intercommunal conflicts in the last half-decade.

“Mixed heirloom” is the general term commonly used to identify coffee originating from Ethiopia, encompassing regional landraces and Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC) varieties.

JARC varieties are promoted and bred because of their good quality when grown at the recommended elevations, resistance to or tolerance of adverse elements, and adaptability to diverse environments. There are 40+ JARC varieties comprising mainly pure line selections and a handful of hybrids. They are known to express floral and fruity qualities, and a complex character even when processed using traditional methods.

Following traditional practices, Haro Wolabu Village farmers cultivate several varieties in small plots of land without artificial inputs, making the coffees organic by default. Many of them depend on the natural proliferation of the coffee plants, which grow into trees close to each other, which in some cases can inhibit the identification of the individual coffee varieties at the time of harvest.

At harvest season, the head of household designates the trees which are ripe for picking — the ones with deep red cherries — and it is conventionally women who are recognized to have the acumen for it who lead in this task. Throughout, they take care not to strip the trees of leaves or harm any of the branches. The cherries are then brought to Oboleyan Coffee’s washing station, where they are pre-cleaned and sorted before being laid out on the raised beds to dry.

The critical challenge of natural processing lies in enabling only the desired flavors to develop in order for a high level of quality to be achieved. To do this, it is necessary for the lots to include only healthy, ripe cherries. Further, the cherries must dry evenly until the target moisture level is reached in a process that takes between 10 to 12 days.

Facilitating both requires the keen attention and careful manual labor of the farmers who select and sort the cherries, and the washing station workers who monitor the moisture levels and carry out tasks like turning the cherries over at regular intervals and covering them with the appropriate material in case of unfavorable weather conditions.

In this lot, the natural process revealed more of a caramel character rounded out by subtle fruit overtones.